Tips to Increase WordPress Security
1. Keep WordPress up-to-date
While this may seem like a simple thing to do, it can have a significant impact on the general WordPress website security. Hackers keep advancing daily. With new codes and new techniques of hacking, WordPress keeps coming up with updates that help keep your site’s admin safe from hackers. So keep checking for that update available bannered and click it to keep your website updated. If you are worried that updating will break something, always backup your data. In most cases, WordPress has reviewed its version and come up with ways to fix any security holes that may have been on the site. It means that a WordPress website that is out of date is more vulnerable.
2. Keep plugins and themes up-to-date
Just as you must update the core regularly, you should also update your plugins and the themes on your website. Every plugin or theme that is not updated promptly is like a backdoor to your site’s admin. Unless the themes and plugins are regularly secured through the regularly updated, they create an open door for your information.
3. Use well-known sources
Whenever you need to download plugins, it is always good to ensure that you are downloading the plugins and themes from well-known sources. Just like downloading files and other videos, you need to have a reliable source; otherwise, you will download a virus or other malware that will destroy your site. You would save yourself a lot of trouble if you were to download all your plugins from wordpress.org because the themes and plugins have been thoroughly scanned and vetted before being available in the directories. There are also numerous plugin sources where you can get premium plugins and themes without having to worry about downloading malware.
4. Change your file permissions
According to WordPress, you should always avoid 777 permits. Instead, opt got 750 or 755. While you are on the subject, change your files to 644 and 640 and change your wp-config.php to 600 for added security. It will be much more difficult for a person to hack your WordPress account.
5. Never use admin as the username
The last thing you want to do is to make it easy for individuals to gain access to your WordPress account. You need to make it as difficult as possible to ensure that you have all the required security to protect your information and that of your users. Therefore, if your username is an admin, or something simpler, you need to consider changing it. You can do this by inputting an SQL query in the PHPMyAdmin folder. There are also instructions online on how you can make your admin user name tougher to be known by malicious people on the web. By protecting your admin username, you will be making it difficult for people to hack your WordPress. They will have to spend a lot of time to figure out your password and even longer to find your username.
6. Change your password often
Regardless of how much awareness is created, people are continuously creating simple passwords that are easy for them to remember. If you are going to follow this route, you need to create a long password, and that has special characters like numbers and capital letters. A robust and secure password should be a minimum of 8 letters, including upper cases, lower cases, numbers, and special characters. For instance, your password can be “LetItRain!23” such a password would be harder to crack than just “leteitrain”.
