If you’re considering WordPress as the CMS of choice for your website, you are probably wondering if it offers solid security. WordPress software is in fact very secure. WordPress is used by 60%+ of the websites that use a CMS (content management system) online and there are many users and enterprise organizations that can testify to this claim.  

Some of the most notable brands using WordPress include:

• The White House
• Disney
• NASA
• Time
• TechCrunch
• Disney
• Adobe
• Capgemini
• PlayStation

Why do so many brands love WordPress? Because it is a veritable Swiss army knife for modern web designers. If there’s anything you want to do on a site, you can usually find a plugin or set of plugins to accomplish it with WordPress. This diversity and flexibility have a cost, however, when it comes to the long-term security, speed, and stability of your WordPress site. Fortunately, by following a few simple guidelines you can tap into all the flexibility of WordPress themes and plugins, while still maintaining a secure website.

Common Security Threats

One of the downsides of the internet is the exposure to security threats. The news is filled with stories about malware, cyberattacks, and DDOS attacks. From large banks and hospitals to rural school districts, all websites are targets of security breaches.

Here are the most common types of security breaches websites experience:

• Malware: An umbrella term that can cover a variety of different viruses.
• Ransomware: Programs that lock down users’ information until the hackers are paid a certain amount of money.
• Drive-by Attack: Programs that only need a user to visit a website in order to infect their computer.
• Trojan Horse: Programs that look like beneficial software and trick users into downloading them.
• Brute Force Attacks. This attack is when a bot tries to guess the correct login for your site. The bot repeatedly enters different usernames and passwords until it gains access. If successful, someone could do a lot of damage to your site with full access to your WordPress admin. But even if they’re not successful in logging in, the sheer number of login attempts could slow down or crash your server.
• DDOS Attack: A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of Internet traffic.
• SQL Injection: An attempt to access back-end databases in order to steal sensitive customer data.
• File Inclusion Exploits. WordPress is a PHP-based system. In file inclusion exploits, attackers manage to load and execute PHP files that allow them to modify system files such as your wp-config.php file. 
• Cross-Site Scripting. Attackers insert client-side scripts into your website to change how your site acts for visitors and even steal user data.

No matter what software you use to build a website, these threats exist, and you must proactively work to block them.

WordPress Security Starts With You

The core WordPress software is secure, and security breakdowns usually happen at the human level. This means keeping your WordPress website protected starts and ends with you. As the business owner or website user, you are in control of security from the moment you register your domain and select a hosting company to the instance you hit publish on a new piece of content. Creating a secure website and keeping it safe is highly influenced by you.

Let’s review the top steps you can take to help keep your website secure.

1. Choose a Reputable Hosting Provider

One of the first and best things you can do to keep your WordPress site secure is to choose a reputable hosting provider. Although you can build your site through WordPress, they don’t perform actual site hosting. Your website will be hosted through a separate company, and if you don’t choose a reputable one, they could leave your site vulnerable to hackers, or offer no WordPress hack recovery assistance.

Make sure you do your homework before signing up with a hosting provider. Read customer reviews, read listicles of high-quality hosting companies, ensure they have enhanced security features, such as a web application firewall, and talk to your tech-savvy friends who have sites about what providers they use. Also, google the company you’re considering; if a bunch of stories about website breaches come up, go with a different company.

2. Use an SSL Certificate

Using a single sockets layer, or SSL is a great way to keep your WordPress website safer for you and your clients. An SSL is effectively a way of encrypting the data that runs between a user’s web browser and your web server. Without this, anyone can see all your site data in plain text, including private customer information, credit card numbers, and more.

Best of all, using an SSL certificate can do even more than just improve your site security. Google and other high-profile search engines have begun to recognize the security benefits SSLs provide and have factored that into their search engine algorithms. Running an SSL can actually improve your search engine rankings, which can be crucial for bringing in new visitors to your site.

3. Make Strong Passwords Mandatory

Strong passwords are one of the best and simplest ways to protect against hackers, both on and off your website. Many hackers start by trying to find the easiest way into your site, which usually ends up being through your user’s generic passwords. Hackers will try common passwords such as “password123,” “[sitename]123,” and so on. The worst part is many times these tactics work because users fail to create a solid password strategy.

You can prevent this issue by requiring everyone creating an account on your website to utilize a strong password. Ideally, passwords should include a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters and should be at least eight characters long. There should also be at least one capital letter, and for an extra layer of security, you can ask people to change their passwords on a regular basis.

4. Use Two-Factor Authentication 

Even if you use strong password requirements, many people will still find ways to make their passwords easy to remember, which means they are also easy to guess. One way to beef up your site security is to use two-factor authentication. This is much harder for hackers to break into, as they must guess or know two pieces of the information correctly.

Your two-factor authentication could include asking users a security question when they log in. You could also send them a separate confirmation code through a secondary contact source. The access code will expire within fifteen minutes, making it all but impossible for hackers to get correct.

5. Limit Failed Login Attempts

If you don’t use two-factor authentication, you will want to limit the number of failed login attempts a user can have. Many hackers will use a brute-force method that guesses different password combinations until they find the right one. Computer programs can run dozens of password guesses a minute, making it simple to discover the right combination.

Limiting failed login attempts stymies this brute-force method. Give customers three to five chances to get the right login information. If they fail, they will have to reset their password using a secondary contact method that will be hard for hackers to break into as well.

6. Rename Your Login URL

Most WordPress sites use a standard admin login URL , which makes it tremendously simple for hackers to gain access to your login site, especially if your theme has the standard “Powered by WordPress” tag at the bottom. From there, they can exploit version loopholes and other methods to access your site.

Changing the default login URL makes it almost impossible for hackers to get access to your login page. Combined with strong password requirements and two-factor authentication, it will be nearly impossible for hackers to log in to your site.

7. Change the WordPress Database Table Prefix

When you install WordPress, the WordPress database defaults to a “wp-“ table prefix. Having this default prefix can leave your site vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. Changing this to any other term can make it harder for hackers to use this particular method of attack.

The downside is the easiest time to make this change is when you first download WordPress. If you’ve already installed it, you can add some plugins that allow you to change the database table prefix. But always make sure you back up your site before you make any changes to the database.

8. Carefully Choose and Monitor Plugins

Plugins are the most common way an attacker will try to gain access to your site. Plugins account for almost 90% of all known WordPress vulnerabilities, according to WPScan’s database of WordPress vulnerabilities. Pick your plugins wisely and only install a plugin from a trusted developer.

9. Keep Your Software Updated

Keeping your WordPress site updated is one of the most important ways to make it safer. With each new version that comes out, hackers find new loopholes and mistakes in the coding that allow them access to your site. Luckily, WordPress keeps tabs on these loopholes and fixes them as they arise.

In order to get access to the latest security measures WordPress has to offer, you have to update your site. We know it can be a hassle to run those updates, especially if you have plugins and other customizations. But the longer you put it off, the more time you give hackers to get access to your site.

10. Backup Your Website

Another great way to keep your site more secure is to perform regular backups. We know site backups can be a lot of work and take a lot of time, but they’re more than worth it. If your site is ever hacked or crashed, you’ll be able to recover a recent version, rather than having to start over entirely. It also helps to have someone in your corner who knows what to do if your WordPress site gets hacked.

Backing up your website can also be easier these days than it used to be. You can automate backups to run in the middle of the night when no one is likely to be using your site on the front or back end. You can also schedule them in advance so you can set and forget your site backup protocols.

11. Remove Your WordPress Version Number

One of the best ways to make your WordPress site easier is to remove your version number from the visible parts of your site. Many themes automatically include this information, and it can leave you vulnerable to hackers. They can find security loopholes in that specific version number and exploit them to get into your site.

Keep in mind, this isn’t hard to implement. There are lots of ways to remove this information, from custom code or plugins.

Why is Managed Hosting Better for Security? 

Managed WordPress hosting, like Pressable’s WP Cloud services, offers the most protection from attacks. Managed hosting includes automatic updates, so your WordPress core files and plugins stay updated with the latest security patches. Managed hosting also can include monitoring of suspicious activity and automatic blocking of denial of service attacks. And managed hosting has better access to technical support, so you have experts to help recover your site if it’s breached. 

Download the Security Checklist

 Switch to a Secure Host for Your Website

Pressable offers reliable and secure hosting services specifically designed for WordPress. 

Pressable security features include:

• Free SSL certificates
• Managed WordPress updates
• Web Application Firewall (WAF)
• Malware scanning and threat monitoring
• Jetpack Security 

Additionally, if your site is ever compromised, our team of experts will provide hack recovery assistance to ensure your site is rid of intrusive code. We also help clean up the mess left behind and work with you to prevent future attacks. 

Sign up today to access Pressable’s state-of-the-art security features for your WordPress site