WordPress Security Tips: Protect Your Site from Hackers

Are you worried someone could hack your WordPress website?

If you aren’t, then maybe you should be!

If someone can get into your website, they could:

• delete everything
• change your passwords so you can’t get in aymore
• write malicious things about you or your company on your site
• [insert other horrible thing you can imagine here]

With so many millions of WordPress websites out there now, you need to protect your site from hackers.

There are so many ways your site can be hacked, that it is hard to even imagine, let alone explain them all.

But in this post I am going to cover a few of the main things you should be careful of, and what you can do to protect yourself.

I did a recent Hangout on Air with Mark Pierce, a WordPress Security specialist from WPBackupService, where we discussed some of the main WordPress Security issues and how to address them.

I have taken a few excerpts from the HOA video and put them into sections below, so that you can watch the ones that interest you (hint: all of them).

Today is the time to get busy protecting your WordPress website, not the day after it is hacked.

Your WordPress Website is a Hacker’s Target

Maybe now you are a little intrigued. Or perhaps a little worried.

Is your site a target too? Are hackers trying to get in as you read this. Maybe!

It is time to pay attention…

Protect Your WordPress Website

By adding a few plugins to your site, you can severely reduce the chances of a hacker getting in.

There are two main areas you need to protect.

Put up a shield around the code

The first is the code itself. That confusing stuff those crazy programmers have written to make all those bells and whistles on your site.

And even just WordPress itself. You gotta protect it as well.

All that code can be used against you, just not in a court of law!

It all needs to be checked for malicious code injection and general nastiness, as well as being protected from attempts at changing it  later (here come those evil hackers).

But never fear, there are ways to protect yourself…

Some of the plugins you might want to consider for protecting the code and backend are:

Wordfence Security

 iThemes Security (formerly WP Better Security)

And a security door for your login

There are so many dodgy characters lurking around the front door of your WordPress website.

You really need to make sure you have all the locks secured and maybe even a bar on the door.

And if that doesn’t work, maybe you need a doorman as well.

I currently recommend Login Security Solution.

It takes care of limiting logins, alerting you to attempted hacks, enforces strong passwords and much more.

Do you need https (secure connection) for Your Wordpress Website

There is another element of security that you need to take care of, sometimes.

You might have heard about people snooping in your email. Reading your private thoughts.

Well that can happen quite easily on your website, because the information sent between you/your reader and your website is not secure.

Normally that is ok .In fact, on a normal blog it is rarely an issue.

But if you have an ecommerce website, or a membership website, you might want to think about getting a security certificate for your website and the resulting “https”.

If you do need a certificate, you will first want to contact your web hosting company, as they will be best positioned to either help you or give you a provider. Once you have the certificate, you also need to install it on the web hosting server.

WordPress Security in a Nutshell

If you inform yourself a little, and apply the right protection, your WordPress website should be quite secure.

So take an hour or two out of your week and get onto these things now.

Before your site is backed, not after.

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