Security plugins for WordPress
WordPress is a free and open-source website creation tool. A PHP-based CMS (content management system) that makes use of a MySQL database is WordPress. For non-geeks, WordPress is the fastest and most effective platform for creating a blog or website.
Why Should You Lock Down a WordPress Site?
Securing a WordPress site, often referred to as “locking down” the site, is essential to protect your website from a wide range of security threats. These threats can compromise your data, disrupt your operations, and damage your reputation. Here are several key reasons why you should lock down your WordPress site and the benefits of doing so.
1. Protecting Against Cyber Attacks
Preventing Unauthorized Access
Brute Force Attacks
Attackers often use automated scripts to guess login credentials through brute force attacks. Locking down your site helps prevent these unauthorized access attempts by implementing strong passwords, limiting login attempts, and using CAPTCHA.
Malware Injections
Malicious actors may attempt to inject malware into your site to steal data or spread malicious content. By securing your site, you can reduce the risk of malware infections through the use of security plugins, regular updates, and monitoring.
Mitigating DDoS Attacks
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks aim to overwhelm your server with traffic, causing downtime. A well-secured site can better withstand such attacks by using measures like firewall protection and traffic monitoring.
2. Safeguarding Sensitive Data
Protecting User Data
If your site collects sensitive information such as email addresses, payment details, or personal data, it is crucial to ensure this data is protected from breaches. Securing your site helps comply with data protection regulations like GDPR and CCPA, and prevents identity theft and fraud.
Securing Admin Access
Admin access should be tightly controlled to prevent unauthorized changes to your website. Using strong, unique passwords, two-factor authentication (2FA), and role-based access control can help secure admin accounts.
3. Maintaining Site Integrity and Performance
Preventing Defacement
Hackers may deface your website by altering its appearance or content. This not only damages your brand’s reputation but also undermines user trust. Regular security checks and updates can prevent such incidents.
Ensuring Website Availability
Security measures help ensure that your website remains available and operational. Downtime due to security breaches can lead to lost revenue, reduced customer trust, and a negative impact on search engine rankings.
Avoiding SEO Penalties
Search engines like Google penalize websites that are infected with malware or host malicious content. Securing your site helps maintain your search engine rankings and prevents penalties that can lead to reduced visibility and traffic.
4. Enhancing User Trust and Confidence
Building Trust with Users
A secure website builds trust with your users. Visitors are more likely to engage with your site, make purchases, and share personal information if they feel their data is protected.
Demonstrating Professionalism
Investing in website security demonstrates professionalism and a commitment to protecting your users. This can enhance your brand’s reputation and differentiate you from competitors.
5. Preventing Financial Losses
Avoiding Cleanup Costs
Recovering from a security breach can be costly. This includes expenses related to site cleanup, data recovery, legal fees, and compensating affected users. Preventative security measures can save you from these potential financial burdens.
Protecting Revenue Streams
For e-commerce sites, security is paramount to protect revenue streams. A breach that compromises payment data or causes prolonged downtime can lead to significant financial losses.
Essential Security Measures for Locking Down a WordPress Site
1. Regular Updates
Core Updates
Keep your WordPress core updated to the latest version to ensure you have the latest security patches and features.
Plugin and Theme Updates
Regularly update plugins and themes to their latest versions to fix vulnerabilities and improve performance.
2. Strong Authentication
Strong Passwords
Use strong, unique passwords for all user accounts, especially admin accounts. Encourage users to do the same.
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
Implement 2FA to add an extra layer of security to your login process.
3. Secure Hosting Environment
Choose a Reputable Host
Select a hosting provider that offers robust security features such as firewalls, DDoS protection, and regular backups.
Regular Backups
Ensure regular backups of your site to recover quickly in case of a security breach or data loss.
4. Security Plugins
Install Security Plugins
Use reputable security plugins like Wordfence, Sucuri, or iThemes Security to add layers of protection, including malware scanning, firewall protection, and login security.
5. HTTPS and SSL
Secure Connections
Use HTTPS to encrypt data transmitted between your site and its users. Obtain an SSL certificate to enable HTTPS on your site.
6. Access Controls
Limit Login Attempts
Limit the number of login attempts to prevent brute force attacks. Use plugins or server settings to enforce this.
Role-Based Access Control
Assign appropriate roles and permissions to users, ensuring that only authorized individuals have access to critical functions and data.
7. Monitoring and Alerts
Activity Monitoring
Monitor user activity and changes on your site to detect suspicious behavior early. Use plugins to log and review activities.
Security Alerts
Set up alerts to notify you of potential security threats or breaches, enabling you to respond quickly.
If someone hacks your WordPress site, you could lose important information, assets, and reputation. Also, these security problems could put your customers’ personal information and billing information at risk.
Based on the WPScan Vulnerability Database, the following are some of the most common security holes in WordPress:
- Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) is when a trusted web application forces a user to do things they don’t want to.
- A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack takes down online services by flooding them with unwanted connections, making a site inaccessible.
- Authentication bypass is a way for hackers to access your website’s resources without having to prove that they are real.
- SQL injection (SQLi) is when a hacker forces the system to run bad SQL queries and change data in the database.
- Cross-site scripting (XSS) is when bad code is put into a site, turning it into a way to spread malware.
- Local file inclusion (LFI) is when malicious files are put on the web server and the site is forced to process them.
General Best Practices to Improve Website Security
In this section, we’ll talk about six general WordPress security tips that don’t require high-risk investments or advanced technical knowledge.
1. Update WordPress Version Regularly
WordPress updates its software often to make it run better and keep it safe. Your site is also safe from cyber threats because of these updates. One of the easiest ways to make WordPress safer is to keep your version updated. But almost half of the WordPress sites use an older version of WordPress, which makes them more vulnerable.
2. Use Secure WP-Admin Login Credentials
Users often make the mistake of using usernames that are easy to guess, like “admin,” “administrator,” or “test.” This makes your site more likely to be hit by a brute force attack. Attackers also use this kind of attack to go after WordPress sites with weak passwords. So, we suggest that you make your username and password unique and harder to guess.
3. Set up the Admin Page’s Safelist and Blocklist
When URL lockdown is turned on, your login page is protected from brute force attacks and IP addresses that are not authorized. To do that, you need a service like Cloudflare or Sucuri that acts as a web application firewall (WAF).
You can set up a rule to lock down a zone using Cloudflare. It lists the URLs you want to lock down and the IP addresses that can access them. Nobody outside of the given IP range will be able to get to them.
4. Use Trusted WordPress Themes
WordPress themes that have been “hacked” are illegal copies of the original premium themes. Most of the time, these themes are sold at lower prices to get people to buy them. But they often have a lot of security problems.
Most of the time, hackers who sell “nulled” themes are the ones who broke into the original premium theme and added malware and spam links. Also, these themes could be backdoors to other attacks that could put your WordPress site at risk.
5. Install SSL Certificate
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a data transfer protocol that makes it harder for attackers to steal important information by encrypting the data sent between a website and its visitors.
The website’s search engine optimization (SEO) is also improved by SSL certificates, which helps it get more visitors. If a website has an SSL certificate, it will use HTTPS instead of HTTP, which makes it easy to find.
6. Remove Unused WordPress Plugins and Themes
Leaving plugins and themes on the site that aren’t being used can be bad, especially if they haven’t been updated. Hackers can use out-of-date plugins and themes to get into your site, which makes it more likely that your site will be attacked.
What is a WordPress Plugin?
A WordPress plugin is a package of extra code that you can add to your website to add new features, functions, or connections.
- Plugins can be added to your WordPress site through the Plugins menu.
- You can use the search function built into WordPress to find a free plugin in the WordPress.org Plugin directory.
- You can also package plugins as zip files and upload them through the Plugins menu in your WordPress dashboard.
Best WordPress Security Plugins
Wordfence Security
Wordfence is a top security plugin that has been downloaded more than 4 million times so far. Its best free scanning tool checks your core files, plugin files, theme files, posts, and comments for suspicious code, broken URLs, and spam.
Wordfence does these scans regularly and automatically, and if it finds a threat, security hole, or corrupted file, it will let you know. It won’t let you restore the latter, but it will tell you how the file has changed so you can fix it more quickly.
Defender
Defender is a new security solution for WordPress that has already been downloaded more than a million times. It looks like it will work well. After you install and set up the tool with a few clicks, it starts protecting your site right away.
iThemes Security
More than 1 million people around the world use iThemes security, which has both a free version and a paid version.
The free version uses Sucuri SiteCheck to scan for malware and gives advice on how to fix any problems found. It also sets security requirements for different parts of your site.
Sucuri
Sucuri is well-known among web developers and online businesses for its high-quality products and services in the field of cybersecurity. One of these is Sucuri’s free WordPress security plugin, which gives you a lot of control over your site and a full picture of all its security-related parts.
All in One WP Security and Firewall
All In One WP Security & Firewall is a popular, free security plugin that can be used in many ways. For its (zero) price, this add-on has a lot of features, such as malware and vulnerability scanning, login protection, comment spam protection, user monitoring, database backups, a firewall, and other ways to make your website more secure.
Jetpack
As a WordPress site owner, you’ve probably already heard of Jetpack. The WordPress community thinks it’s one of the best plugins out there, and for good reason. It’s a simple, all-in-one solution for improving site security, performance, and content management.
BulletProof Security
If you want a more advanced, hands-on security plugin, BulletProof Security is a good choice. The main.htaccess file is where this plugin does its work. Its main features are better database security, firewall security, and login hardening.
Security Ninja
Try the Security Ninja plugin for thorough and easy-to-use testing of security holes. This tool does more than 50 security checks on your core files, themes, plugins, and how strong your passwords are. It then shows you in your dashboard how safe your website is.
Conclusion
Malware injection and DDoS assaults are two examples of distinct types of cyberattacks. Due to the popularity of the CMS, hackers often attack WordPress websites. Owners of WordPress websites must thus understand how to safeguard their sites.
Frequently Asked Question
A content management system (CMS) like WordPress lets you host and build websites. WordPress has a plugin architecture and a template system, so you can change any website to fit your business, blog, portfolio, or online store.
A WordPress website can be free or it can cost money (like WordPress plugins and WordPress themes). But WordPress core, which is the software itself, is and will always be free.
If you publish on the web with WordPress, you can rest easy knowing that you’re in good company. WordPress is used by NBC, CBS, USA Today, Time, Disney, Airbnb, Spotify, TechCrunch, and even the Pioneer Woman, among other well-known blogs, news sites, music sites, Fortune 500 companies, and celebrities.
Not even close! Most people who use WordPress are not developers. There’s no need to learn complicated CSS or PHP when there are so many themes and plugins with lots of features that make it easy to change your website.
It’s easy to make changes because you can see them in your WordPress dashboard. Click the refresh/update icon or go to Dashboard > Updates and click the “Install Now” button to install an update. Once the installation is done, you should see a confirmation screen that says “Welcome to the latest version of WordPress.”
Plugins let you add a wide range of features and functions to your WordPress site. A WordPress plugin is basically a piece of software that you add to your website. Most plugins add new features or functions to your WordPress site without you having to do much. Just install the plugin and set up its settings.
Information derived from:
https://blog.hubspot.com/website/best-security-wordpress-plugins-secure-blog
