Security is the most sensitive issue that we all have to deal with. Today word press is a widely used platform as its efficient and simple, but apart from all the convenience and feasibility that we get through this platform, the worst issue we all face is related to its security. Unfortunately, according to factual documents, hackers targeting the word press platform are on a continuous rise.
What the hackers do is use a special technique known as the ‘Brute Force’, with which they generate different combination of strings to try and break into any website or web system’s admin panel. But you need to rest easy and relax, as with the implementation of some basic security steps, you can protect your system against all such ill minded attempts.
Security Steps to Implement
The security steps that each of you must implement for your word press blogging or eCommerce website, are as follow:
Always Create a Backup
Creation of a backup system is the first thing that you need to do, if you are looking to protect your site and its content. Backup plays a key role in the virtual world, so get a professional backup creation service to effectively create a backup of your whole online system. There are loads of reliable word press backup creation services, which would love to provide you with their more than just reliable backup services.
Protecting Your Password
Having a secure password is a must, if you want to nullify all intruders and hackers. It’s recommended for you to set your password using numbers, alphabets and special characters and make it at least 8 characters in length. Avoid using common words as passwords as these can be easily cracked. Another thing you need to follow is to set different passwords for different accounts. This would make sure that even if one account gets hacked; all your other accounts remain safe.
Keep Everything Up-to-date
Keeping with the latest version of WP is strongly suggested for you. This is because of the fact that there are certain loopholes present in the old versions that can’t be avoided, unless the new version of widgets, themes and plugins etc. is installed. In fact there are many security plugins available that would contribute towards the security cause of your website!
Strengthen your Admin Username
Setting of your username as ‘admin’ is way too easy to be guessed, which is why you need to set it to something random. As a matter of fact, setting your username to something like ‘entertainment_blog1!’ is an easy guess for the professional hackers, which is why using a random number sequence with a combination of special characters just like your license plate number is the way to go about it!
Getting Help from Security Plugins
As slightly mentioned above, there are security plugins available that can enhance the security of your WP. Some security plugins such as ‘Login Logger’ monitors and records the number of times you have logged into your account by tracking the IP address of the required machine as well as date , time and location. Furthermore it can also provide you information about the failed login attempts.
Enable Foolproof Protection of your Wp-Config File
As wp-config is the basic file of your site, enabling security for it means that you have dead bolted the WP security issue. What you need to do is to make some basic changes in the wp-config.php file to enhance your website’s security.
a. Changing Prefix of Your Site’s Database ($table_prefix)
By changing this value you can change the name of all your database tables thus making it almost next to impossible for the hackers to break into your database system. Changing the default value “wp-.” To something random is what you must not forget to do!
b. Inactivate the editing of your plugin and theme files
You can easily disable the editing of your theme and plugin files by adding just one line of code to your configuration file i-e ‘define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’,true);’ and this would restrict the hackers’ access to your site from changing of your existing theme/plugins, even if they do break into your admin panel.
c. Changing Security Keys
Don’t forget to change the default value to something entirely random for the following security key lines:
define(‘AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your random value here’);
define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your random value here’);
define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘put your random value here’);
define(‘NONCE_KEY’, ‘put your random value here’);
define(‘AUTH_SALT’, ‘put your random value here’);
define(‘SECURE_AUTH_SALT’, ‘put your random value here’);
define(‘LOGGED_IN_SALT’, ‘put your random value here’);
define(‘NONCE_SALT’, ‘put your random value here’);
You can also visit api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/ for more information.
All the above mentioned steps would ensure security for your website against hackers. In case your website has already gotten hacked, then what you need to do is, to change all the passwords and restore your website from the backup service provider service by contacting them. Remember that maximizing the security of your WP site, is the need of the day!
Jack Treadwell is an experienced WordPress blogger. He loves to share his knowledge through blogging, and has written a lot of tip previously for other bloggers to protect their blogs from WordPress hackers. He has also provided content writing services for a lot of his clients in the past.
