In today’s digital era there are billions of devices accessing the internet every hour. There are also millions of malware spreading and affecting thousands of computers every day. Which are not noticeable unless you have good protection?
The most common of these occurrences is hacking. And mostly the poorly maintained websites will get affected. The government no exception for it either.
You might wonder who does hacking? It is done by a group or a single person called hacker, who will exploit all your vulnerable points in the website. Steal data in worst will blackmail you, which will not end in a good way.
WordPress is the largest web builders and website hosters are being hacked every day and most of them will be hacked due to the mistakes of the Admins.
If a device is connected to the internet no matter it’s functionality it can be hacked! Which will eventually lead to a digital disaster?
But in this article, we will be focusing on the WordPress, and how to protect your WordPress website.
Firstly, WordPress is a PHP script that communicates directly with the MySQL database. It means whenever you do a query, it has to communicate with the MYSQL database, which is pretty vulnerable.
So the question arises.
How Do You Secure Your WordPress Website?
It’s not just hacking that makes a website but there are other methods like spamming the chat or comment section.
A website is required for a business to thrive online. WordPress is the best CMS system most widely used, making it a target for all the hackers.
WordPress is pretty impressive itself, it gets new updates constantly increasing its features and security and much more. But it all falls on the users. If they use them properly they will safe or else..!
What Are These Best WordPress Security Best Practices Anyway?
Now the good stuff, let’s see how you should safeguard your website.
- It Starts With Webhost
It is the first step and the biggest mistake a user could ever do!
Web hosting is pretty important. Of course, there are a ton of companies that will host your website. But are they secure enough? Web hosting same as buying a car but you have to choose correctly, that which car would suit you better and what is warranty provided by the company. It’s pretty nerve-wracking.
So just try to stick with WordPress hosting.
- Initial Installation
During the installation, the WordPress will be sending all the data to MYSQL server in the form of PHP. For which you have to create a username and password.
Create a password as complex as you can since all the data will be stored in an unknown location in a server that you may never see.
- Your Admin Username is Important
As a default, the username for admin will be “admin” which can be changed. In fact, changing it as soon as possible would be great.
Some may argue that people will use their company name to change their username which is like giving a free hint to the hacker who might hold a grudge against you.
But if you can create a username that’s less revealing then it won’t be a problem.
- Email And Mail Provider
Usually, when we forget a password we can recover our password by using the recovery mail.
In other words, if your mail provider is not secure enough, it’s most likely that your account will be hacked.
Some of web hosting companies will provide their mail services which reasonably secure.
You can also a secretive mail that you never gave to anyone for login recovery.
- Shield from Spammers
Spammers usually use bots to spam your comment section.
Soon or later your website will be filled with all types of malware, trojans. After some time your website may collapse due to excess load.
You can limit your comments section for the verified user like authenticating them using their emails or you can completely block them for few articles that are getting spammed regularly.
You can also use captcha for the bot verification and it works fine.
- Secure your Admin Page
These are the four default roles which have admin access by default.
- The Administration
- The Author
- The Contributor
- Subscriber
The roles are self-explanatory. You have to lock the admin access for others except for the admin.
The wp-admin page is the most attacked part of the website, so if we have more admins it would definitely increase your vulnerability.
Of course, you can use Front End User Post plugin for allowing guest blogging.
- Regular Plugin And Website Maintenance
Updating and maintaining your plugins is important, always lookout for updates.
Turn off the plugins that you are not using or delete some plugins if you don’t want to use them at all.
- Always Back Up
Back up is always a good option. There are tons of free to premium plugins in WordPress, Which are awesome?
If you can afford to have a physical encrypted backup then go for it. It will help if you decide to clean your server or in the worst case, if your server is hacked.
- Use Security Plugins
Now to secure your website, you can use the plugins in the WP, in fact, you should only use them.
Try to invest in a premium security plugins, which will have more protection than the normal one.
Please don’t download plugins from the third party. They may give away premium WP plugins for free but they might bundle in some malware which will later turn into a disaster.
- Always Do External Analysis
Finally get a WordPress expert to check your website. It may cost you but it’s worth it all. You can also get your analysis through other big WordPress website design company you may get a discount.
How To Regain Your Hacked WordPress Website
Let’s imagine that despite your best efforts you got hacked. So how to get back, your hacked wordpress website. Let us see.
Firstly you will be removed from the search engines so that you won’t infect or cause trouble to others. Yes, you will also lose all your SEO score. In other words, your site is dead!
If you still have the access to the PHP my admin page along with a backup copy, you can get the problem resolved by just restoring your site.
But in worst if you don’t have any access and knowledge about PHP then give up and uninstall the old hacked WordPress and get a new one.
- Backup Database
If you still have the access to your admin page then it’s time to back up. But before you do clean your website first, remove the changed variables and newly installed waste by hackers.
After securing your domain, than just restore your website from online backup or a physical backup.
- Export Your Valuables
Now it’s time for the aftermath. You can restore some data from the backup but still, the data like comments and few articles may not be available.
Don’t worries WordPress can help you at this point. All you have to do is just navigate through the admin settings to find the “export” button and click on it.
After some basic steps, you are ready to go online. But it’s better to call your host, to check the situation there and have some WordPress developer experts, to look at your website and roll it online later.
Of course, you should take actions, so that your website won’t get hacked.