WordPress and the questions pertaining to its security have had endless debates on whether or not WordPress is secure or not. It is often criticized for being vulnerable but over the year with some major updates, it is a much secure platform today.
There are certain things that even fall under your shelter, as a user; there are things that you need to take care of, for securing your WordPress website from any potential internet attacks. In this article we shall discuss about the things that you need to take care of and what are the measures you need to take, to stop the hackers from gaining access to your WordPress website.
Things that you need to know as website owner
According to recent surveys done by the experts, 61.5% had one idea on how attackers gain access and compromised their websites. This shouldn’t be surprising enough as most of the site owners clean their websites by themselves, which in result might create more problems for them. Owners usually believe that cleaning the website would leave no vulnerability but they fail to understand that it had been already compromised in the first place.
From the above given image, here we shall concentrate upon two major risks, Plugins and Brute Force Attacks. If you manage to protect these two (Plugins and Brute force attacks), 70% of your problems are already been solved.
Plugins carry the biggest Risk
There is no denying that one of the crucial reasons for WordPress Popularity is because of its Plugins. As of today there are 45,395 plugins available, which can be downloaded from the official WordPress plugin directory. But again, you need to trade carefully with them. According to recent survey reports, 59% of the users believe that plugins are highly vulnerable for being the entry point to many potential attacks.
Here are some tips for you to avoid plugin vulnerabilities;
Keep your Plugins updated
The first and foremost thing is to keep your plugins updated. Usually, reputable plugin authors tend to fix the vulnerabilities as soon as they are discovered. Updating them (plugin) would prevent any hacker to exploit your plugin.
Avoid using abandoned plugins
It is quite fair to say that you rely upon the plugin developer to assure that their code doesn’t contain any sort of vulnerability. It is also important to note that, if the developer isn’t providing any updates, there lays a greater risk that vulnerabilities haven’t been fixed yet.
It is better to avoid plugins that haven’t been updated in over a period of 6 moths. It is advisable to conduct an audit at least once in every six months to make sure none of the plugins used in your website are abandoned by their authors.
Download Plugins from reputed sites only
If you are planning to download plugins from somewhere else and not from the WordPress repository, do make sure the website from where you plan to download is reputed. Hackers are smart and they know how to trick you, they can compromise your website by tricking you to load malware by yourself. The hacker would easily set up a website, which would look like a legitimate one to you and without a slightest of hint you will download an abandoned or a compromised plugin.
With that being said, you’ll have to trade carefully with plugins and see to it that they have no vulnerabilities in their written codes. WordPress Development Specialists and their communities often provide with guidelines for you to understand and implement the same.
Brute Force Attacks
Basically brute force attack is a password guessing attack. Now, the hacker here does two things, firstly they try and identify the valid username that you use for your website and secondly, guess the required password for that user name. No doubt that there are many effective ways to avoid such attacks but even today brute force attacks are still a major problem faced by many users.
Here are some tips for you avoid brute force attacks that might compromise your website
Two-factor Authentication
This is one of the most secure methods for you to apply. Basically with this approach, users not only know about their password, but as two-factor authentication will be done through their cellphone, the security concerns will be well taken care of.
Avoid using username as Admin or Administrator
It is important for you to understand, that using obvious usernames would only create trouble for your WordPress website. Admin and Administrator are the most common usernames that hackers experiment with brute force attacks.
Also try to avoid using domain name and company name that are listed on your website.
To sum it up, do note that many of the websites that are compromised, hackers gain access through plugins or by brute force attacks. Keep your website up to date, keep your plugins well in check and avoid using user names that are way too easy for hackers to guess.
Here at Helios Solutions we have an excellent and hardworking team of WordPress Developers. Over the years, we have delivered satisfactory results to our clients and help them make their websites well secured. If you are willing to make a website for your business, WE can help you make one according to your needs and preferences.
