WordPress is a rewarding piece of CMS system, and it’s a fact that does not need any second opinion. It’s a content management system that is extremely robust to the core and has all the makings of a successful platform. For any business planning to move online, WordPress comes a real ally. Simply because it offers them an ease and comfort to get their website up and running right off the bat.
However, despite of its groundbreaking features, WordPress is a platform for which security has always remained a serious issue. No matter how much confident you are about your website security, malicious coders can any time gain an illegal access and spell a terrible fate to your website in no time. The threats are ever more elevated for e-commerce sites.
Maintaining a proper security of your WordPress site should be a priority. You may not find a steadfast technique to ensure 100% security of your website, but still there are some simple tricks that you can implement to curb hackers to break into your site.
In this post, I have compiled a list of some steps which you can take to keep bad guys at bay. Let’s have a look at them to raise the security bar of your WordPress site.
1. Update your WordPress version
This is the most simple and clever tip one can follow to augment their site security. Make sure you have an updated version of your CMS because there are less chances of sites getting hacked with an up-to-date version. Keep an eye on WordPress.org to know about the latest software available for your website. In addition, keeping the latest version of plugins and themes also proves to be a handy solution to enhance the security level of your website.
2. Make use of security socket layer (SSL)
SSL is a very popular term, especially among those who are a part of Internet technologies. The main idea is to keep the distribution of sensitive information across the Internet encrypted so that only intended recipient can understand it. SSL certificates are necessary for e-commerce websites who accept credit card numbers, account numbers, username and passwords from their shoppers. If the information sent or received isn’t encrypted, hackers would easily find gateways to enter your site and ruin its operations.
3. Create and maintain backups
Once you are done with deleting unnecessary plugins and themes, and updated your entire website, forget not to create a backup of your website to steer clear unwanted results. Since, no one can guarantee complete security of a website, and in the situation of crisis, it’s your backup that acts as a savior. Having a well-maintained backup helps you to plan your website launch in no time.
Just make sure to have a weekly and monthly backup of your website, so that you can immediately restore all the data destroyed by hackers. You either go for manual process or install plugins like BackWPup to automatically backup your website.
4. Keep your directories hidden
Invest some time and efforts to hide your directories so that cannot be accessed or viewed by unauthorized people. Hiding directories in WordPress is a very simple process, all you need is just use a simple line of code in your .htaccess file and you are done. To edit this file, you need to connect to your website with the help of an FTP client. After this, just add the following line at the bottom of .htaccess file.
Options -Indexes
Once add, save the file and upload it to the server via FTP client.
5. Disable your version number
WordPress, by default, leaves a footprint for website tracking purpose. This footprint can let the audience know about the version number of your website. Failing to update this footprint on a regular basis can make your website vulnerable to security attacks, so hiding it is necessary to keep it secure from those prying eyes.
Luckily, it’s very easy to get rid of this info with the help of a very simple code. All you need is just open your functions.php file and add the following code to it.
add_filter(‘login_errors’,create_function(‘$a’, “return null;”));
To Wrap Up
Strengthening your WordPress security is crucial to create an online stir. Since security, lapses can prove to be dreadful for your website, make sure you cover those flanks before anything goes wrong.
Author Biography: Jack Calder is well known professional and working as Web Developer in Markupcloud Ltd, an enthusiastic PSD to HTML conversion service company. Jack also loves blogging, and he use to update others with his classic knowledge.