At Thrive Web Designs, we understand how much time and money goes into building a website. We also understand how important professional web design is to your business and livelihood. That’s why we’d like to talk about WordPress security in today’s post. WordPress is a wonderful platform that is extremely secure straight out of the box. However, there are some things you should do to ensure it’s safe from those with malicious intent.
WordPress Security Tips
Ensuring your WordPress website is secure doesn’t have to be a huge undertaking. However, it’s important to know what to look out for when it comes to securing your site. Below are a few important things you can do when it comes to the basics of WordPress security.
Secure SSL
SSL (secure socket layer) is used to encrypt and secure information that is sent to and from your website. SSL also protects you from those attempting to grab your admin username and password when you log into your website. Even more, web browsers like Google Chrome show warnings for websites that aren’t encrypted with a secure SSL certificate.
Password Policy
Instead of having one secure password, setting and implementing a strong password policy for your users is extremely important. After all, it’s possible that you may end up hiring new employees that you’ll allow logging into your website. Why? Any additional user accounts can be used to compromise your website and steal information. In today’s world, it’s simply not enough to have a password that is hard to guess.
In fact, it’s become more and more common for large institutions and other websites to become hacked as stolen passwords and databases are being shared on the dark web. By reusing an old password, you put your website (or any online account) in jeopardy. Since security threats are changing all the time, so are the best password practices when it comes to WordPress.
Limit Permissions
WordPress security ultimately depends on who has access to your website. Take the time to think about each of your users and consider why kind of access they need. While certain administrators may need to full access to the backend of your website, they may only need that permission for a short time period due to a special project or troubleshooting issues. That’s why it’s important to document each of your users and the permissions they have. Last but not least, once a user stops performing work on your website, you should remove their profile and login credentials completely.
Update WordPress
Today, WordPress is one of the most updatable content management systems in the world. However, there will always be vulnerabilities. That’s why it’s important to keep your WordPress website, theme, and related plugins updated to ward off potential hackers.
To stay on top of things, you can install auto-updating plugins and software to keep your website up-to-date. While this might seem a bit scary due to occasional update errors, these issues are usually very easy to fix compared to having your website hacked. If you don’t want to install auto-updating plugins and software, you can create an update schedule where updates are tested and applied on a scheduled basis.
Secure Hosting
When it comes to your WordPress website, all your security efforts might be futile if your hosting isn’t secure. Large providers like BlueHost or WPEngine, are focused on additional WordPress security and go out of their way to secure their hosting/user accounts and servers.
If your website is hosted through a smaller provider that doesn’t specialize in hosting WordPress, you may want to consider moving to a larger provider such as these. Larger hosting providers like the ones mentioned above have the necessary resources dedicated to network and software security.
Website Backup
One of the absolute best WordPress security measures is to always have a clean backup of your website. If you get hacked or their experience a fatal error, a backup copy will make recovering your website easier while saving you the hassle of starting from scratch. Furthermore, you may want to consider securing your backup somewhere off-site so it’s safe and secure and can be used to easily restore your website if something goes wrong.
Secure WordPress Admin
While it can be pretty easy to find the admin login area of your website, you can make it tougher to hack if basic precautions are put into place to validate it’s a person rather than a robot attempting to log in. This can be done by adding a CAPTCHA to your login form itself. You can also limit the number of login attempts that can be made to make it harder for hackers. Both of the tactics will boost your WordPress security while providing you with essential notifications due to suspicious activity.
Two-Factor Authentication
Two-Factor authentication is a wonderful option to secure your WordPress website. The idea behind this is that you will require two separate things in order to gain access. For example, in an attempt to log into your website, you will need a special code sent via text to your mobile phone in combination with your username and password. This is something that makes it almost impossible for a hacker to obtain. Furthermore, two-factor authentication will provide you with the peace of mind knowing your site is secure with an additional layer of defense against hacking attempts.
Professional Web Design
While these security measures help to minimize the risk of attack or data breach, it can be hard to secure your website without the technical knowledge needed to do so. At Thrive Web Designs, we understand the worries of website owners. As a professional web design company, we take care of every aspect related to the safety of the websites we build with real-time technical assistance. Contact us by filling out our online form or give us a call at (208) 391-2504 to keep your website safe and secure.
