WordPress Security – Best Practices to Protect Your Site

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems on the planet. However, with its popularity comes a high risk of cyberattacks.

Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to secure your site from hackers. In this article, we will discuss the top best practices you can use to protect your site from security vulnerabilities.

1. Install a Security Plugin

There are a lot of WordPress security plugins to choose from, but it’s important to find one that is trusted and proven to protect your site. That way, you don’t have to worry about your site getting hacked or being compromised.

The most popular options are often all-in-one solutions, meaning they address security issues from multiple angles. They’re easier to install and more convenient than using several different plugins to target specific vulnerabilities.

These tools can also check for malware and other malicious code on your website. They usually scan the entire site to look for suspicious files, and they can remove them if found.

This can help prevent future attacks from happening. They can also alert you if something goes wrong with your site and you need to take action.

A good WordPress security plugin should also include features for backing up your database and.htaccess file, so you don’t lose your data if your site is hacked or crashes. You should also look for a backup solution that allows you to schedule automatic backups, such as UpdraftPlus.

Lastly, you should consider installing a firewall on your WordPress site. This will help block unauthorized users from accessing your site, and it can be useful for protecting your passwords as well.

You should also make sure to install a security tool that checks your core WordPress files for backdoors and other signs of infection. This is important, because hackers sometimes change these files to add backdoors and other vulnerabilities.

For example, the Sucuri plugin will automatically check your PHP, JavaScript, and CSS files for backdoors, which are pieces of code that can allow attackers to bypass the WordPress security measures.

Another great option is All In One WP Security & Firewall, which has been favored by hundreds of thousands of WordPress owners because it’s simple and easy to use for everyone. The free version offers 35 security checks and comes with no upsells or recurring charges.

You can use the plugin to block countries through geolocation or to create user groups for security purposes. It can also protect your site from brute force login attempts. It has a security dashboard that will display graphs showing how strong your site is and which areas need attention.

2. Change Your Password

Changing your password on your WordPress site is an important part of maintaining the security of your site. Using the same password for your website as you use on all of your other accounts, such as email or social media platforms, is not only a bad idea, but it can also lead to hackers trying to access your website.

Luckily, WordPress makes it easy to change your password at any time. In fact, if you’re an administrator for your site, it’s almost as simple as logging into your WordPress dashboard and clicking Change Password in the Account Management section of your profile.

However, you should only ever use a password on your WordPress site that you can easily remember. This will help ensure that you don’t forget it and allow you to log into your site without having to worry about being locked out.

You can also help protect your site by changing the passwords of any other users who need to access it. There are a few different ways to do this, depending on your web host and what type of WordPress installation you have.

If you’re hosting your site on Kinsta, you can use the MyKinsta portal to reset user passwords. Alternatively, you can use the password reset feature in phpMyAdmin to reset your own or another user’s password.

When resetting a password, make sure that you use a strong password that is at least ten characters long and includes capital and small letters, numbers and special characters. It’s also a good idea to avoid personal information such as birthdays or names.

The best way to keep your WordPress password secure is to update it regularly. This is especially true if you’re a business with multiple employees who need to login to the site.

It’s also a good idea to encourage your users to create their own passwords using password generator tools. These are available for free online and are a great way to ensure that your site is protected from hacking. These tools will even let you check the strength of your users’ passwords and if you need to, schedule brute-force attacks yourself.

3. Monitor Your Site

A hacked website can lead to security breaches, loss of data, and even financial losses. It can also negatively affect your website’s reputation and search rankings, and if it’s a business site, it could damage your brand’s image.

To protect your site, it’s vital to monitor it on a regular basis. This will allow you to spot changes, catch unauthorized users, and ensure that your site remains secure at all times.

The best way to do this is to install a file integrity monitor plugin. This will alert you when any files change on your site, allowing you to deal with malware quickly and efficiently.

There are several plugins that can do this for you. Some of them scan your files for any malicious code, while others detect potential vulnerabilities in your site.

If you’re running WordPress, you should be aware of the many security issues that can occur within your site. These can include malware, zero-day vulnerabilities, backdoors, and more.

You can use a free vulnerability scanner like Jetpack Protect to scan your site for these issues and keep them from causing you any serious damage. The free version of this plugin uses the WPScan security scanner to check your site for vulnerabilities, and it will alert you to any problems that may be affecting your site.

Another useful tool to monitor your site is a plugin that generates logs of activity on your site. These logs will show you everything that happens on your website, including user modifications, plugin updates, and themes. The information will be stored in real-time, giving you the ability to monitor your site in real-time.

These logging features are essential to keeping your site safe from hackers, and they’re free to use. Moreover, they aren’t time-consuming to set up or maintain.

Lastly, you should be looking for a WordPress plugin that will automatically monitor your site for malware and other potential security issues. This will help you to keep your site safe from a wide variety of threats, and it will help you to get quick fixes for problems if they do occur.

4. Back Up Your Site

Everyone knows that we should back up our computers, but a lot of people aren’t taking the same precautions for their websites. Thankfully, there are some great tools out there that make it easy to backup your site.

Keeping a backup of your site is one of the best things you can do to protect your website from malware, hacks, and other threats that could put your data at risk. You can use a service like CodeGuard, which will monitor your site for changes and create backups when necessary.

There’s also a plugin called BackupBuddy, which backs up your entire site so you can quickly restore it in the event of a problem. It can be set to do backups at a specific time every day, or you can choose to do them manually whenever you want.

No matter how much care you take with your website, there will be times when something goes wrong and you need to go back to the previous version of it. It’s best to do this by restoring a recent backup, so that you don’t have to start over from scratch.

In addition to your website, you should also backup your database, themes, and plugins. These are often the most important files on your site, and they can be easily lost if your website crashes.

You can back up all these files using a service that stores them offsite or in the cloud, so that they’re never on your server. It’s also a good idea to label your backup files with dates so that you can find the right one in case you need it later.

Aside from the security benefits of backing up your site, there are many other reasons to do it. Having a backup can help you avoid losing traffic or rankings if your site is down for days, or it can save you a ton of time if you accidentally delete or break a file.

The most important thing to remember is that you should always keep a copy of your site in multiple places, and you should never delete any of these copies. You can do this by using a service that allows you to keep three different versions of your site, or you can do it yourself with a few free tools.