Cybersecurity Tips for Your WordPress Website
If you’re running a website-based business, then you need to pay further attention to your WordPress security.
As much as business owners show responsibility to protect their physical store building, an online business owner should do the same to protect their business website. One of the most used website management systems for businesses is WordPress.
For those who may not know or are unfamiliar with it, WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that allows you to host and build websites. WordPress has more than 455 million websites that utilize this platform. This means a splendid 35% of the world’s website market share goes to the web hosting giant.
A hacked WordPress site can cause consequential damage to your business revenue and reputation. Hackers can abscond user information, passwords, install malicious software, and can even administer malware to your users. The worst-case scenario is you may find yourself paying a ransom to hackers just to retrieve access to your website. According to techopedia.com, at least 400 million people access WordPress websites every month. As such, you can see why there is an increasing need to make your WordPress site as secure against cyberthreats as possible.
WordPress is undoubtedly one of the world’s most popular content management systems (CMS). But what’s the point of using an excellent CMS if the content is prone to cyberattacks? Hackers and various types of malwares are relentless in their attempts to gain access to websites and their sensitive data.
In 2018, WordPress accounted for 90% of all hacked CMS websites. However, 2% of the data breaches were caused by a weak spot in WordPress’s primary security which means it was users who exposed their sites to threats in diverse ways, usually through vulnerable plugins. And in the first half of 2021, there were more than 86 billion password attack attempts blocked, and it is approximated that there are an average of 30,000 new websites hacked every day.
The result?
We are currently seeing an unparalleled amount of cyber security attacks. This issue affects businesses of all sizes, especially small and medium sized businesses due to lack of expertise and resources. Sadly, only 14% of those businesses are prepared to defend themselves.
For those who may not know this, WordPress comes with thousands of plugins and themes that you can install on your website. These plugins and themes are preserved by third-party developers which regularly release updates as well. These WordPress updates are critical for the security and stability of your WordPress site. You need to make sure that your WordPress core, plugins, and theme are up to date.
If you’re using a WordPress-fuelled website, it’s safe to assume that the last thing you want is to find your site bounded by the chaos of a cyberattack. Therefore, with the ever-escalating threats on the web today, security is an important consideration for your website project. Fortunately, there are plenty of steps you can take to protect your WordPress website and data.
With the help of hostinger.com, here are some tips, strategies, and practices you should know to keep your WordPress website secure.
How to Secure Your WordPress Website?
- Keep your site up to date.
- Use secure wp-admin login credentials.
- Setup safelist and blocklist for the admin page.
- Use a trusted WordPress theme.
- Install an SSL certificate for a secure data transfer.
- Remove unused WordPress themes and plugins.
- Enable two-factor authentication.
- Create backups regularly.
- Limit the number of failed login attempts.
- Change your WordPress login page URL.
- Automatically log out idle users.
- Monitor user activity.
- Regularly scan your site for malware.
- Disable the PHP error reporting feature.
- Migrate to a more secure web host.
- Disable file editing.
- Use .htaccess to disable PHP file execution and protect the wp-config.php file.
- Change the default WordPress database prefix.
- Disable the XML-RPC feature.
- Hide your WordPress version.
- Block hotlinking from other websites.
- Manage file and folder permissions.