The advent of WordPress in 2003 is accredited as the most remarkable invention of web development industry. This exemplary platform was built with an objective of simplifying and revamping blogging which is why it was especially connoted as the prime blogging platform. With technological advancement and need for sustainability, the ardent developers of WordPress community amplified this platform as not just for blogging but equally for web development.
The intuitive and scalable interface of this platform increased its popularity among the web users. And as of now, WordPress is known as the most popular CMS across the world. This open source platform is widely used by newbie as well as established developers that increases its chances of being more vulnerable to malicious threats and hacks. Preventing the WordPress site has become the prime concern for site authors lately.
Let’s take a look at some key tips that would prevent your WordPress site from hackers.
Tips To Secure WordPress Site From Hackers
1. Avoid Using Defaults Instead Opt Secure Hosting
WordPress renders multiple ways for sign up and usage. A few companies go for the easily available packages while others go for the basic ones. It majorly depends on the hosting plan, the installation software, domain name, etc. that determine the security at basic level for your website. The more lenient you are into keeping your account, the more vulnerable it is to hackers. So remember not to leave any loophole while detailing these default functions. Also, do not use the default username and password provided to you with the purchase of your WordPress package. Change it as soon as you install the package. In the other case, even if the company allowed you to enter your details by default, do not miss to change them again for your safety as there are no foolproof chances of your hosting company’s server to be secured during your project.
2. Delete All The Themes And Plugins That Are Not Used Anymore
There are many theories supporting the verdict that unused themes, plugins and images should be deleted to avoid any security threat and to avoid filling up the junk on your servers. Moreover, this common notion of saying is that unused plugins are a threat to the WordPress site is utterly true. This is because a hacker would target the plugins that were popularly bought by people, no matter if they use them or not. And who knows your website be among the targeted ones.
Most of the site owners keep the plugins on their system despite of the fact that they are not using them. Once a hacker finds/creates a loophole in your unused plugin, there are fair chances that it gets highly prone to virulent attacks. Moreover, there are good probabilities that you haven’t updated your plugin obviously because you don’t use it which itself opens an opportunistic door for hackers to breach your system. Conclusively, deleting the plugins that are not used anymore in your system is the best thing to do to ensure the security of your WordPress site.
3. Create a Strong Password And Update It In Every 2 Months
This is one of the known and mostly not-followed-rules of the internet. Create a password that is 8 characters long and is a mix of both symbols and numbers.
Have a long password and change it in every 72 days. Make sure your password is a combination of random numbers and letters. Do not make a mistake of writing it on your WordPress site somewhere instead pen it down in a notepad if you are prone to forgetting your passwords.
4. Keep All Your WordPress Themes, Plugins And Definitely Its Core Functionality Updated
Follow the golden rule of keeping your WordPress site, themes and plugins updated. Some of us just focus on keeping the WordPress updated while leaving aside the plugins and other functionalities in a fear of changing the site’s operations. Though this is not always false that updating the WordPress site, plugins and themes could break your site but the chances are as low as 0.001% and can only occur to the sites that are badly coded. The only reason that things broke after the update is that the developer of the theme or the plugin has stopped supporting its code.
And always keep a backup of your site before updating so that even if the new updated functions do not support your site it can still work with the factory installed functions.
5. Disable Directory Listing On Your Server
Most of the web servers come with an added facility of enabling directory listing by default which should be disabled soon after the website development is completed. This will forbid any user without index.html or index.php file to access your server directory. In case you haven’t disabled this feature in your website, hackers might easily get access through your directory structure and know all about your stored files on the server.
6. Install Only Verified And Trusted Themes/Plugins
Do not install themes or plugins from any marketing or non-verified video and sites. As they provide completely built sites that are more likely to have virulent coding, thus compromising your site easily on security. So, always download themes & plugins from a trusted website like codecanyon, themeforest, etc.
7. Check Your Dashboard Activity
Though having many users on a site is an added advantage but keeping a record on their activity is an added responsibility. A minor wrongdoing may cost you big. Keep a check on to the logging activities of your dashboard.
Summing Up!
Securing a WordPress website is much more than just installing a security plugin as it takes few more efforts to ensure the functioning of that plugin and your site. Apart from the above-mentioned tips, there are few that you might have heard before and some you haven’t. It is equally important to follow them all to get a secured WordPress website.
Author Bio: Bryan Lazaris is a senior WordPress developer at HireWebDeveloper who holds expertise in working with WordPress. He is passionate about writing informational blogs and write-ups in his field of expertise i.e WordPress design and development.