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Hello Everyone! The topic of today’s blog is “Tips for securing your WordPress Website”. I will be explaining to you how to secure your WordPress Website using a few tips.
Now assume that you have built a WordPress Website and it is online, but as you all know that WordPress websites can be hacked easily even if your website is big or small. Therefore there is one most important point to be considered while building your WordPress website and that is: Making it secure!
Also, it is observed that your website will never become 100% secured, but then also you can go for at least 99% security. Now for achieving this security for all the types of WordPress websites, which can be big or small, consider the account for each and every point of accessing and also each and every point of accounts’ weaknesses.
It might happen that some of you may think that their website is properly secured. If it is so, then it’s a good thing, but for those who don’t think that their website is secure, they need to take out some time and go through these tips which I am going to mention here. And I think these tips will definitely help you to secure your WordPress website. I also ensure you that you will definitely get an action plan or you will become more hopeful about the various security measures which you are currently using, and I think both these results will be great for you.
So without wasting time let’s start to discuss the tips for securing your WordPress website.
Now if you give access of your WordPress dashboard to everyone then someone from them can make modifications on your website by adding new posts or new web pages or he may try to change the settings of your website! Now if that person is unqualified or inexperienced then he will not be able to recognize these mistakes or he may have intentions of creating something malicious, so give access to only those whom you can trust.
Also, there is one more way for securing your website and it is to whitelist your IP address to someone who is not experienced at your IP from accessing the dashboard of your website and thus you can reduce the hacking attempts. It is required to access your site’s admin panel using the same IP address.
For doing this first of all add a new .htaccess file to your wp-admin folder and insert the following code:
order deny,
allow
allow from YOUR IP ADDRESS
deny from all
You can also add the following code to your wp-config.php file, if you want to secure your theme and Plugins from getting modified by any unauthorized user:
define (‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);
When you setup any website on a server at that time your files are stored within folders. Now, if anyone tries to browse the contents of each and every folder or directory, then it will be like keeping the door open for the malicious hacking attempts. Thus the blocking contents of some of the folders will not be noticeable to the visitors. It is a non recognition strategy. This might not make your website 100% secure, but it will provide minimum information to the hackers and this is what we want.
For blocking browsing of directory, first open your .htaccess file and add the following code at the bottom:
options –Indexes
That’s all you need to do here!
Earlier, WordPress themes were used to output the version number of the WordPress automatically using the <head> tag. Now WordPress adds this information and this information is important to know at the time of analyzing who is using what? Ant thus this information is available to anyone who takes a look at your code, which is hazardous to the security of your website.
Now you must be wondering why? The reason is when any hacker gets the version number then it makes his job more easier and our aim is to not make his job easier instead of that you just need to add following code in the functions.php file for the theme:
function remove_wp_version (){
return ‘ ‘;
}
<span style=”line-height: 1.8em ;”> add_filer ( ‘the_generator’, ‘remove_wp_version’ );
This code will remove the version number and thus inserts another layer of security to your website.
This advice is heard many times and you should really require listening to it. For your website’s complete security you need to select a difficult username and password. Keep few things in mind like: Try to avoid using ‘admin’ as your username, as it is the most famous username and if you use this same username then it will be like giving permission to the hackers for accessing your data.
When you create password always try to remember to mix numbers, letters and symbols and make it impossible for the humans to estimate and even more difficult for the machine to guess it.
Some people never give importance to backup. It might be because they don’t know the importance of backup or they may think that taking a backup of entire website is a waste of time. Therefore most of the people try to avoid doing this.
It is really great that now a day the process of taking backups has completely become automated and it is a best solution using which you can schedule the backups in advance. This way you will not forget taking the backup of your website. The detailed instructions are explained in WordPress Codex or you can choose a Plugin based solution.
Every time hackers try to use new techniques for hacking a website. So if you are using an outdated version of the WordPress then it can be like getting into trouble. So always try to make sure that the version that you are using for your website is the latest version for security purpose.
Always keep in mind while selecting any theme, it must have a good name and if you select the themes which are developed by less reputable developers or the themes which do not have a clean code, then it may open up your site security weaknesses when you install such a theme.
So it is always better to go through the reviews of the themes before installing them and if you are going to purchase a premium theme then always try to purchase it from a well established website. Thus try to install theme updates whenever they are available. As mentioned earlier, always try to keep WordPress’ important files up to date.
Whatever I have mentioned about themes in above tip, same applies to the Plugins also. This advice is true for Plugins because they may sometimes contain malicious data or malware. Do not try to download any Plugin from a developer to whom you do not identify or trust and similar to the themes always try to install the updates whenever they are available to you, which will help you keeping your website secure.
wp-config.php is the most important file on your complete WordPress website as it holds a tone of data regarding your website, which contains details about databases, entire setting of your website etc. Now if the hacker has good knowledge about it then he may change everything about your website using the information in this file. So imagine how important it is to protect this file. Don’t worry there is a simple solution for fixing this problem. You just need to insert the following code snippet into your .htaccess file below the sentence: #END WordPress:
<Files wp-config.php>
order allow, deny
deny from all
</Files>
Security of your WordPress website also depends a lot upon your WordPress hosting provider that you select. I would like to inform you that when you are looking for a best web host, try to compare the plans, try to compare their features, their pricing, their ratings, their reviews and also if it is possible then try to use their demo control panel/ WHM and thus these results will help you in selecting the best web hosting provider.
Also ensure that the web hosting provider is able to assess a hosts’ security, solutions for backups and several other types of information before taking a final decision.
Always remember that the web host which you will select, will play an important role in time required to load your website, your website’s uptime and how much your private and public data are secured, so don’t take this decision lightly!!!!
Summary:
This list of tips is not the final list; but I think it should at least try to give you a brilliant place to start from. It must have helped you in terms of finding the security weaknesses and how to act on them for protecting your website from hackers. I think it may provide you a sense of satisfaction. As you all know that it is common to spend a lot of working hours on website development and installation in the similar fashion it is important to devote some time to secure your website.
I would like to know what type of measures you take for protecting your website. Do you like to use manual perspective or do you like to get solutions using Plugins? I hope you find this blog helpful! Please let me know your suggestions or queries through comments. Thank you for reading this blog! See you soon with next blog!!
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