How to Secure WordPress Site
How to Protect Your WordPress Website Safe: If you’re reading this article, then it means that you either own or are planning on creating a website using the WordPress content management system (CMS). That’s great! WordPress has over 60 million users in more than 200 countries, and it powers at least 25% of all websites on the internet.
But with such popularity comes challenges to staying safe online. If you have ever visited any major news sites like CNN or New York Times, or any other popular sites like Amazon or Netflix, then you have probably seen WordPress used in action.
Tips to Protect Your WordPress Website Safe
Backup Your Site
If you’re not using a service that backs up your site, you’re putting your website at risk. Period. Why? If anything happens to your site—your web host crashes, your server dies or malware infects it—there’s a good chance that all of your hard work will go down with it.
So before you do anything else, make sure you have a backup plan. There are lots of options out there; some are free and some are paid. Check out our guide on how to back up your site for more information on which option is best for you.
Restrict Access To Sensitive Files
If you are looking for a way to keep your website safe from third parties, you’ll need to make sure you limit access to certain files and directories. The most common way of limiting access is by creating a .htaccess file. To create a .htaccess file, open up your preferred text editor and enter code such as RewriteEngine On and RewriteBase / under a new line.
Then, simply paste any restrictions or limitations you want in between those two lines of code (such as DirectoryIndex index.php) and save the document as a .htaccess file in your root directory.
Use Complex Passwords To Protect Your WordPress Website
The most basic way to keep your website safe is by setting up strong passwords. A complex password consists of a minimum of 8 characters, using upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. If you use an easily identifiable password like password 12345678 it could make it easier for someone to access your website without permission.
This means that if someone were to gain access to your account they would be able to do more destruction than they otherwise would have been able to do. It’s best not only for security but also for peace of mind that you create a difficult password so no one can break into your account.
Disable Login Attempts After A Certain Number
Using Limit Login Attempts makes it easy to do this. Go to Settings -> Discussion and uncheck Allow guests to post comments on new articles. Also, go to your wp-config.php file and increase your max_execution_time from 30 seconds to 120 seconds (or higher). If you have a lot of traffic or get a lot of spam comments, you may want to set it even higher.
You’ll also need to make sure that all of your plugins are up-to-date as well. You can do so by going to Plugins -> Installed Plugins and clicking Update Now at the top right corner of each plugin page.
Set Up Security Notifications
There are two easy ways to stay safe online. The first is obvious: Don’t click links or attachments from untrusted sources. If something seems fishy, it probably is. The second method involves using auto-updates for your software—WordPress, plugins, and so on.
This process can take a bit of setup time (depending on your situation), but once in place, you can feel more confident that security issues will be resolved without your involvement.
Many websites allow users to set up automatic updates; however, if yours doesn’t or you do not have permission to modify its settings, check out free plugins like Auto Updates Manager and Ping Plugins Updater.
Have An Auto-Update Process In Place
Stay up-to-date with your website software and plugins by having an auto-update process in place. This will ensure that security patches get applied as soon as they are released, which is one of the best ways to protect your WordPress website from malicious attacks.
The fact is that any time you’re not actively managing your web assets, it could put you at risk for someone else exploiting them. Automating updates will keep you safe from those bad actors. The only caveat here is that major version updates (WordPress 3. x -> 4. x) should be performed manually; major updates like that can break your site if they aren’t handled correctly (i.e., it would be best if a developer did it instead).
