How to Secure Your WordPress Website? 5 Easy Ways
WordPress is widely used around the world to create beautiful and elegant websites. It has an open-source CMS platform. WordPress has plugins and templates so you can customize your website at any time to your liking. WordPress has MYSQL and MariaDB databases with PHP language. So WordPress allows its customers to build websites in seconds and allows them to interact with the website using a dashboard. Once you create a website, you need to secure your site from suspicious things like brute attackers and hackers.
In this guide, I’m going to describe the best 5 ways to protect your WordPress website from hackers. All the steps are very simple and no back-end coding is required to protect your WordPress site. Hackers can enter your website in various ways such as guessing usernames and passwords, tracking your admin login page, sending fake surveys, and much more. So, let’s start the discussion!
Top 5 ways to protect WordPress site from hackers:
1. Install a WordPress Security Plugin
After completing your site, first thing is to install the security plugin to secure your site. There are hundreds of best WordPress security firewalls plugins available like Sucuri Security, WordFence, iTheme security and, Anti Malware security. You can scan your site anytime for common threats and stop brute force attacks. One more thing, most of the security plugins are free to use but if you want to secure your site in the most advanced then you have to purchase paid plans.
2. Use a Strong Password
One of the major reasons that most of the websites are being hacked is the weak login username and password. After creating a website, most people set the normal username and passwords that are easy to memorize for them as well as for attackers.
Some of the common examples of passwords that are used:
- Password123
- password@1234
- @website123
- admin@123
Well, this type of password is easy to be tracked by anyone. More than 50% of new bloggers use weak passwords. Brute attackers can break your password and damage your data. So always use strong passwords and add letters, alphabets, and special characters to the passwords and username as well. While changing the admin password, WordPress gives you one option to “generate new password”, use this option to secure the admin password.
3. Disable File Editing
The problem with the WordPress file editor is that it allows users to use the PHP code on your site. Whenever a user is able to use their code, this poses a security risk. If an unsecured administrator account is hacked, the WordPress file editor is the gateway where full attacks can be made.
So disabling the file editor is a good idea to secure a WordPress website, you will be happy to know that it is very easy to do. Just add this line of code to your wp-config.php file and this will disable editing the files from your WordPress theme editor.
define (‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);
You can find wp-config.php in the file manager of your Cpanel. Use plugins to insert any header or footer codes.
Read also, What are Breadcrumbs
4. Change your WP-login URL
Creating a new WordPress website, you can access your dashboard by putting “wp-admin or wp-login” at the end of your site’s URL. So, this is by default login URL and accessible for everyone. SO you need to change the Wp-login URL to hide your login URL. To do so, install a plugin and set the custom URL for your login page.
I will recommend you to install the WPS Hide Login plugin and if you don’t know to change your login page then click on How To Change The Login Page URL of a WordPress Site. Set the custom URL and this will completely change your login URL.
5. Limit Login Attempts
Limiting login attempts will definitely keep your website safe from hackers. You know that if you are not restricted to logging in to your site, savage attackers may try again and again to breach your username and password. So limit login attempts to your site. You can do this by setting up your WordPress website from Cpanel.
Restricted login attempts will block the attacker’s IP address. If he tries the wrong username or password, he will not be able to access this page and will be redirected to another page.
