WordPress Website Security: Why Is It Still a Concern?
If you run a blog or website for your business, you know how important it can be to keep your content safe. After all, you’re providing your audience with valuable information about your industry, and you don’t want to risk them seeing content that could damage your business.
With all the sophisticated web threats out there, it’s more important than ever to keep up with the latest security trends and techniques. Fortunately, keeping your content safe doesn’t have to be difficult; in this article, we’ll discuss some of the best ways to secure your WordPress website.
The Importance Of SSL
A website’s security starts with its HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol over a Secure Socket Layer). When your web browser connects to your website over HTTPS, it initiates a secure connection with the website’s server. This encrypted traffic also prevents hackers from accessing any of your website’s content while it’s in transit.
If your website is secured with HTTPS, your audience will see a little padlock icon in the address bar when they visit your site. If your site isn’t yet secured, they’ll see a warning message when they visit your site.
Why is the security of your website’s HTTPS connection so important? Because when people visit your site, they’re giving you their personal information, which you must keep secure. If you use this information to send them fraudulent emails or charge them an incorrect amount, they could hold you accountable for this. Plus, any personal information that you collect is stored on our servers, and you give us the permission to hand this information over to lawyers or government agencies if we need to.
How To Ensure Your Site Is 100% Secure
Now, you might be thinking, “Okay, great — my website is now secured with HTTPS. How do I make sure that nothing ever happens?”
Unfortunately, there’s no surefire way to keep hackers from breaking into your website and stealing your content. The simplest way to avoid this is to pick a domain name for your site that’s easy to remember and doesn’t have any spelling errors.
An easy way to ensure that your site is 100% secure is to use a free security service like 1&1 SSL. With this type of service, WordPress installs automatically when you use their dedicated server, and your site is ready to go live. Plus, you can install 1&1 SSL on your own server if you choose.
Why is it important to use dedicated servers? Because they remove all the complexities of hosting a WordPress site. Instead of worrying about which hosting plan to choose, or whether or not you’ll need premium support, you can focus on building your product.
Although it’s good practice to keep your content secure, you should also look at ways to protect your website’s backend from cyber attacks. This is especially important if you’re using a free WordPress hosting service, as they might have default passwords that you could use to access your site’s administrative panel. You could also use brute force methods to guess or crack your admin account’s password, so using a dedicated server or a VPN will be your best defense against getting hacked.
Regular Backups
One of the simplest ways to keep your content safe is to make regular backups of your site. When you back up your site, you’re essentially saving the content that you’ve published on your site. This way, if something does happen to your site (e.g., hacking attack), you can easily restore it by importing the backups. Regular backups ensure your content isn’t lost, which is why creating them is such an important part of keeping your site secure.
Unfortunately, not all WordPress hosting services offer regular backups, so you’ll have to find a way to make sure that this feature is enabled on your account. Thankfully, 1&1 SSL has this feature built-in, so you don’t have to worry about whether or not it’s enabled on your hosting account.
Saves You From Yourself
Manually backing up your site is a lot of work, and it’s not practical every time you make a change to your website. To help eliminate this problem, you can use a service like Cloud Backup, which automatically backs up your site every hour. This means you never have to think about backing up your site again, as long as you use Cloud Backup.
Backing up your site daily is good practice regardless of whether or not you use Cloud Backup, but if you do use it, you can be sure that your content is always safe.
Use Two-Factor Authentication
When you log in to your WordPress dashboard, you’re presented with a login screen that requires you to enter a username and password. A two-factor authentication system (e.g., 2FA) adds an extra step to the login process by requiring you to enter a code that’s generated from a paired device (e.g., phone or tablet).
You can use any app or website that provides 2FA to generate codes for you (e.g., Google Authenticator, Authy), and you can choose which credentials you want to use for each. For example, you could use the Google Authenticator app to create a code that needs to be entered on your dashboard; when you visit the authy website, you could enter the code that was generated by the Google Authenticator app.
What’s important is that you do not share your password with anyone, and ensure that no one else can access your account without the proper permissions. When using two-factor authentication, you’re essentially providing a second layer of protection to your account. It’s important to keep in mind that hackers can still access your account if they get any of your credentials (e.g., username or password) anyway.
You can use two-factor authentication on your WordPress site with Google Authenticator or Authy. Just make sure that you disable the password for the accounts that you link to Google Authenticator (if you use it) or Authy (if you use it).
Using two-factor authentication on your site adds an extra security step, but it’s also very useful in the event that you do lose your password. You can use the two-factor authentication code to log in to your dashboard and change your password without having to disclose your old password. When selecting a new password, make sure to use a combination of letters and numbers to make it more difficult to guess.
Keep Your Software Up-To-Date
Another important way to keep your content safe is to ensure that your software is always up-to-date. This way, you’ll be sure that any vulnerabilities are patched and cannot be exploited by hackers. Regularly checking for updates ensures that your software is always up-to-date.
If you use a popular CMS like WordPress, you’ll have to ensure that you keep the software updated. Fortunately, regular updates are often free, so you don’t have to worry about paying for them. You can find security updates and the most recent versions of WordPress here.
If you update regularly, you’ll also be able to find and report any vulnerabilities as soon as they’re discovered. With these vulnerabilities, hackers can potentially access your content.
To ensure that your software is always up-to-date, you can use free tools like Maidsafe Antivirus or Comodo Safego for Windows or Bitdefender Total Security for MacOS. When selecting a software application to keep your site secure, it’s important to look for vendors that are committed to keeping your content safe and are supported by independent security research. These tools can help you find any vulnerabilities that were recently discovered and patched by hackers and keep them from being exploited again.
Use A VPN To Secure Your Website
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a service that allows you to securely access any site or service that you want, by creating a secure connection between your device and the VPN server. When you use a VPN, all of your web traffic is encrypted, which prevents hackers from accessing your personal information.
If you use a VPN to secure your web traffic, all of your personal information, including your website’s content, is protected. This is a great way to ensure that your content is always safe, regardless of where you are or what operating system you are using.
There are many different kinds of VPNs, all with unique features and advantages. It’s important to find a VPN that suits your needs and protects your content. Some popular choices include ExpressVPN, VistVPN, Logicool VPN, and StrongVPN.