Importance of WordPress Security & Ways to Implement It in 2023

WordPress is undoubtedly the most popular and immensely loved CMS for plenty of reasons. WordPress is easy to use, offers immense customization possibilities, has an extensive library of themes, plugins and development tools, etc. As a result, the CMS fuels about 43.2% of all the web pages on the internet.

Owing to its unparalleled popularity, WordPress also attracts the attention of hackers from all over the globe. These hackers can hunt vulnerabilities in your WordPress site to capture and use your crucial site data and customer data. Moreover, they can illegally access your site to hold crucial data for ransom.

Site hack attacks can be dreadful and can sabotage your business completely. Thus, you must focus on WordPress Security with the utmost consideration.

Quick Reasons Why WordPress Security is Important:

• Account Suspension: If your website is hacked, your web host and Google might suspend it. And you will just lose all your SEO efforts and traffic.
• Lower Search Rankings: Google deems website security as a crucial ranking parameter as unsecured websites are prone to hacking attacks. And this puts the site visitor’s data at risk.
• Unauthorized Access to Crucial Data: If your website security is vulnerable, your crucial business data and the customer’s data can be compromised by hackers. And this is enough to sabotage your brand reputation and trigger unauthorized use of data. 
• Business Failure: If your business completely depends on online revenue or web-based leads, a successful hacking attempt can expose all your business data and this can be sold to your competitors.

7 Web Security Tips to Implement in 2023

1) Disallow File Editing

In case your admin access has been compromised by a hacker, he can access and modify any of your WordPress files including widgets, themes, etc.

Therefore a good way to block this hacking attempt is by disallowing the file edit access. You can do this by adding the below line of code to your wp-config.php file.

define (‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);

Once this code is added, a hacker cannot make edits to your WordPress files even with admin access.

2) Keep the Directory Listing Disabled

There may be instances where you define a new directory for your WordPress website and forget to add an index.html file to it. In this case, any site visitor can easily check the entire directory listing data you have added in the new directory.

A user simply has to use the new directory’s name in the suffix of your website domain and he can check out the directory contents without any password.

Therefore, to prevent any such breach, you must disable the directory listing. You can simply add the below-listed code to your .htaccess file.

Options All –Indexes

3) Leverage the Website Lockdown Feature and Ban Suspects

A common hacking practice is to use brute-force attacks to gain access through the WordPress login page. Hackers use bots for checking hundreds of password combinations to get access to WordPress sites.

These hacking attempts can be prevented by implementing the lockdown feature based on multiple suspicious login attempts.

You can use security plugins like MalCare or iThemes Security to add the site lockdown feature. So, whenever a user tries a wrong password a set number of times, the access gets locked and you are notified about this suspicious activity. Moreover, that particular IP is banned by the security plugin.

Tip*: Always use strong passwords with two-factor authentication. And keep changing your passwords every 3 months.

4) Setup Reliable WordPress Backups

WordPress site backups are an obvious practice but they are worth mentioning. Some web admins fail to consider the importance of reliable and regular WordPress backups. And they might have nowhere to search for a backup in case their site is hacked.

Therefore, you must always ensure reliable backups for your website files and database. This backup must be stored at an independent location and this will help you restore your website in the case of an attack.

While you can also use the backup services provided by your web hosting provider, we recommend a dedicated backup tool. Dedicated backup tools are highly secure and independent, and offer a high data-restoring success rate.

5) Update Your WordPress CMS Setup

While many web admins ignore WordPress version updates, widget updates, etc., these are highly crucial for your WordPress security. Hackers continuously try to exploit the security vulnerabilities in the older versions of WordPress and you can prevent these breaches by continuously updating your WordPress core, themes and plugins.

The new versions of WordPress often come with fixed security issues that still pertain to the older versions. Moreover, the updated versions deliver better performance and user experience.

Thus, you can plan regular updates through your web hosting account.

6) Using SSL Encryption is a Must

SSL technology or Secure Socket Layer is an industry-wide standard to highlight secure websites on the internet.

This certification ensures that the data that is exchanged between your site and the visitors is encrypted, hence safeguarded from hackers.

Google also prioritizes secure websites over non-secure websites. And some browsers represent a warning for non-secure websites.

Thus, you must switch from HTTP to HTTPS. You can implement HTTPS simply by adding the SSL Certificate to your site. Your web host provider can avail you of this certificate, or you can use SSL plugins like SSL Native, Brainworx SSL, etc.

7) Monitor Your Audit Logs and Files

You might be managing a multi-author WordPress website and therefore it is important to keep a track of the activity made by different authors on your website.

So, you can expect the other contributors and authors to make changes to the site content and design. However, you might not expect them to make changes in the plugins and themes.

Therefore, you can use the WP Security Audit Log plugin to check the activity log of different authors.

Moreover, plugins like iThemes Security and Wordfence can help you track any changes to your WordPress files and notify you about any vulnerabilities.

Summing Up

Webytude as a trusted WordPress development company always re-emphasizes the importance of WordPress security for our clients. And we use the development best practices to build well-encrypted, robust, and highly secure websites.

So, it is time to put the above-listed security measures into practice and safeguard your WordPress site against any hacking attempts.

Conclusion