How to Secure WordPress Website from Hackers 2022

WordPress is quite a user-friendly platform for creating and publishing online content. The CMS provided by WordPress is easy to implement and customise according to your website requirements. But this open-access nature of the platform also makes it susceptible to attacks from hackers. Therefore it is very important for bloggers and online content business sites to know how to secure WordPress from hackers.

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Securing your WordPress website

If you are new to WordPress, make sure you understand how to secure login access to your site’s dashboard. It is also important to learn how plugins work to ensure the safety of your site and its content. To help you with this task, we have come up with a few measures you can take to keep your WordPress site safe. Find out how to secure WordPress website from hackers below.

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Login Security

 

Use Strong Login Credentials

The safety of your site depends on the login credentials set by you. Make sure that you change the admin name and use a strong password that is difficult to crack in order to prevent brute force attacks. The more complex your password, the more difficult it will be for hackers to get access to your site. Also, change your passwords frequently to keep the security uptight.

Trust only if you must

Don’t share your WordPress login credentials with multiple users or developers. Make sure you are careful in trusting the people you allow access to your site. More importantly, review what privileges you allow these users when they logged into your site. Once the task of the developer or user has been completed, remove their access to ensure the safety of your website. 

Set up website lockdown and auto-logout feature

This a great feature to prevent your site from brute force attacks. Your site will automatically lockdown after 2 or 3 failed login attempts and you will be notified of this activity immediately. To implement this, you can use the iThemes Security plugin but make sure that you update the WordPress version timely to ensure the safety of your site. Also, set up an automatic logout feature if the user has been idle for certain time by using BulletProof Security plugin to prevent people from misusing your account. 

Use two-factor authentication for WordPress security

To add another layer of security, use Google Authenticator plugin. This plugin will allow you to add two login components. Apart from the password, you can choose a secret question, code or set of characters. The Google Authenticator app will send these secondary components to your phone, allowing you better control over your site’s access. 

Use your email to log in

Using email IDs instead of user IDs is another simple safety measure to protect your site from hackers. It adds a bit of extra safety as email IDs are difficult to guess while user IDs are easy to predict for hackers. Therefore, using your email ID instead of user name can protect it from hackers who specialize in brute force attacks.

 

Site Security

 

Keep WordPress Plugins Secure & Updated

WordPress in itself has a secure CMS and keeps the site protected. However, installing too many plugins without ensuring their safety can compromise the security of the site. Since WordPress is an open-access platform, the code is available to all users and each plugin you install is a doorway to enter your site. While you protect login access to the website, adding unverified plugins can open gateways for hackers. This is why it is important to keep your plugins secure and update WordPress regularly to prevent your site.

Rename your login URL to secure your WordPress website

It is important to change your URL from wp-login.php or wp-admin to something personalized. Remember, 99% of the brute force attacks are possible because the login URLs are predictable. URLs based on the two formats mentioned above are easy to predict and hack. Changing it to something like my_new_login can reduce the predictability of the URL and make it less prone to attacks from hackers who are trying to access your database.

Protect the wp-admin directory

The wp-admin directory is prone to attacks as it is the heart of the site. It is important to protect it because if it gets hacked, the entire site will be damaged. You can protect it with a password using WordPress security measures. Adjusting your hosting setup via cPanel can help you protect the wp-admin directory. Once you are done setting this up, the user will have to give two passwords to access, one for logging in and the other for accessing the WordPress admin area.

Use SSL to encrypt data

You can get Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate to secure the admin panel. It not only secures data transfer between browsers and server but also enhances the Alexa rank of the site. SSL makes it difficult for hackers to get access to your site or misuse the information. So this is not just good for security but also enhances the performance of your WordPress website. You can purchase SSL certificate from a third-party company or even get one from your hosting site if they offer it for free.

Remove your WordPress version number

Your WordPress version number is available at the bottom of your dashboard. It is important to hide this number to stop hackers from getting access. If your WordPress version number is not hidden, it is easy for hackers to tailor an attack using this information. It can be hidden using either of the security plugins mentioned above.

Prevent a WordPress Hack with a Website Firewall

Having plugins and themes on your WordPress site can often prevent you from updating the current version. This makes it easier for hackers to attack your site. Installing Web Application Firewall (WAF) can prevent this. WAF directs regular traffic towards your website and prevents potential hackers, DoS and exploits from hitting your WordPress site. This way you can ensure the use of plugins without compromising the security of your website.

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Why Get an SSL Certificate

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate is among the most critical tools you’ve got for guarding your customers’ sensitive info, comforting customers your website is trustworthy and assisting in earning your business legitimate. Whether an on-line merchant does not offer legal small business documents, he’ll not get SSL protocol because of his website.

SSL security cost is really depends on the security level you decide on and the sort of SSL certificate that you get. A SSL Certificate is essential to safeguard websites and allow them for data security. SSL is a superb technology. SSL technology gives a secure means for online transactions.

How to Get Started with Why Get an SSL Certificate?

If users must login or make an account on your web site, then you definitely have to have a SSL certificate. The greatest issue in acquiring a SSL for your own website is the selling price. Because no info is submitted on your own website, you won’t require a SSL certificate. Since it’s exceptionally troublesome for all these crooks to achieve a fitting SSL certificate, they are not able to superbly mimic your web site.

At times, owners of sub-domains make use of the SSL of the main domain user. If your website requires a SSL certificate, there are a couple of strategies to start getting one. Doing so will enable any subdomain of such website that you pick to create to get authenticated by just one digital certificate.

The thought of SSL technology is growing day by day. A SSL certificate is the thing that provides the capacity to communicate this way. In summary, whichever certificate you require, it really is necessary within the current world of prospective cyber crimes to acquire a SSL certificate. If you sell anything on the internet, even in fairly smaller quantities, you are required to pay for SSL certification through a distinguished authority.

Among the best approaches to discover a trustworthy and very affordable certificate is through a hosting company. The ideal way to gain trust of consumers will be to think about the SSL certificate and draw a bigger variety of customers. There are a lot of various ways to try it, and therefore you need to know a lot more to choose the most excellent SSL for you.

Most hosting companies offer you these certificates. You only want to recognize your organization information, that publish the certificates. There are many kinds and various degrees of web certificate to be exchanged. Well, each certificate authority might have a number of different intermediate certificates and you have to pick the best one.

There are many several types of certificates out there. Benefits of varied kinds are offered with these certificates.

Using an inexpensive SSL certificate is the same than paying full cost for a certificate. Still, You can make use of a third-party payment processor and prevent buying a certificate of your very own. Then you can definitely purchase a dedicated SSL certificate for real-time charge card processing. An electronic certificate, essentially, is an electronic identification card.

The principal usage of SSL certificate will be to safeguard the personal details like passwords, charge card details, bank statements etc. against any kind of hacking. An increasing number of web consumers understand the value of the certificate and will generally look for it before actually purchasing anything online.

Your customers can monitor your SSL certificate and it’ll show your credibility. Should it, you’ll need a SSL certificate. SSL certificates are a basic security measure. Top SSL Certificates aren’t costly.

That won’t ever happen if your website has a SSL Certificate. Because of this, websites that have SSL Certificates tend to be more successful than those which do not. If you’ve decided to buy your own SSL certificate, you’ll need to determine how you would like your URL to be called. You first ought to determine who you’re going to truly get your SSL certificate from.

A very average variety of website certificate originates from websites which provide free website hosting. Perhaps, you’ve seen these kinds of certificates used in verifying information you’re downloading from a different website. Absolutely Free certificates aren’t trusted when they pop up on a website, but even if they’re trustworthy, they may be made to appear to be a website that can’t be trusted. A SSL Certificate is a great way to appear expert online and ensure your customers your website is secure to conduct business on.

When you can wait 3-5 days, you may get certificates from ingrained vendors using slow standard validation methods. In addition, There are SSL certificates available from numerous online sellers. Overall it’s actually quite easy along with a cheap SSL certificate will include great instructions on how best to get this up and running right away. There are lots of steps to buying a safe server certificate, after you have decided on a vendor.

How to protect from Brute Force Attack

This article aims to help you against a very common security breach in your website: brute force attacks. These attacks are done by guessing your username and password many times and finally getting them right. It is obvious that these kinds of brute attacks cannot possibly be done by individuals but are performed by bots. These bots can try out various combinations in a matter of minutes. Therefore, they have the capability of trying many possible combinations even within hours. The following four things are necessary for a brute attack to be successful:

1) Knowledge of your username
2) Knowledge of your password
3) Availability of your login page
4) Possibility of trying hundreds of different username and password combinations

Taking care of at least one of the four above-mentioned things can make your website way more secure. However, taking care of all four can definitely make your website very safe and resistant against a brute force attack.

Following are some of the tips to protect WordPress websites against brute force attacks:

A login page that is Secure
Brute force attacks can be compared to infinite monkey theorem. According to this theorem, if a monkey hits the keyboard enough times randomly, the complete works of Shakespeare can be produced. Brute attacks work on this same principle. However, bots are way more sophisticated than monkeys and it is way easier to guess to words than an entire work of Shakespeare. So, enough trying can definitely lead to hacking. Obviously, some usernames and passwords would be more likely to be hacked sooner than others. The complex ones are more difficult so the following two tips can help greatly:

• Admin as a username is a complete number: The long combination of special symbols, lower & uppercase, and numbers can be used to make a strong password.
• Try moving your login page: Having a direct login page like www.sample.com/wp-admin is a login page that can be easily guessed by bots. Obviously, brute attacks need your login page so you can start by making a wp-login page to a more secure URL using free URL Plugin.
• Set limits to login Attempts: If you only allow two or three attempts for trying both your username and password, it will be very difficult for bots to crack it. There are at least 2.8 trillion combinations just with all the letters and numbers. If you use upper or lowercase characters, that would add more to the total options leaving only a minuscule possibility of brute attacks with login restrictions. You can download free plugins for logging lock down on your website and limit the number of attempts

Some final words

Brute force attacks can be a grave threat to people who use WordPress. But following the above-mentioned simple steps can help you fight against most of these brute force attacks. All tips mentioned in the article are free to implement and it won’t take you more than just a few minutes. Feel free to share other tips for protecting websites against brute force attacks in the comments.