7 Effective Ways to Protect Wordpress Website From Hackers

The growing popularity of WordPress websites has also created interest among hackers. Though the platform is ultra-secure from any hacks, it is still prone to vulnerabilities.

As per stats, about 50% of WordPress websites get hacked frequently. If you think your website is not part of those states, you might be wrong.

Attacks can occur on both small and big businesses both, thus it is important for you to protect WordPress websites from hackers.

Read our guide to protect your website from such attacks:

Table of Contents

Tips to Protect WordPress Website From Hackers

1) Update to the latest version

Updating your WordPress site to the latest version is paramount to ensure all the vulnerabilities of the previous version are taken care of. The team behind the development of WordPress works hard to create patches to cover the loopholes or security concerns in each of the releases.

You should keep an eye on the latest version by either subscribing to their email list or just visit their official website regularly. If you fail to update, chances of getting hacked increase as a hacker might have gotten through a loophole that existed in the earlier versions of your WordPress website.

2) Change the Default Credentials

WordPress offers the default login name as ‘admin’, which everyone using or have used this platform knows about. The very first thing after getting your WordPress website up and running is to change the login details.

While creating new login details, ensure that the name or password isn’t guessable because a standard hack attempt includes the use of tools to brute force the password or login name. To create a password and name that cannot be guessed easily, use tools that can generate a difficult password.

3) Updates Themes & Plugins Too

This part is probably already stressed enough. Updating all the features and functionalities you use on your WordPress site ensures that it is prevented from being hacked. Thousands of websites get hunted by hackers because of the outdated plugins and themes installed on them.

As a matter of fact, hackers use an automated process that finds out all the sites that can be exploited. If you use a firewall against all the exploitation opportunities, you can still have protection against this automated hacking attempt.

However, if you don’t, you need to update the plugins to overcome security challenges and themes on WordPress as soon as their new versions are released.

4) Change Default Prefix In Database

wp_ is the default table prefix, which indubitably is known to everyone having expertise in hacking. If you use this on your website, chances are hackers can easily figure out all the table names of the tables created by you on the WordPress website.

Using certain tactics, hackers can easily make SQL injection attacks on your website, thus exploiting your online business to hacking? The right thing would be to change this default wp- to a little more difficult, which can’t be predicted.

Read Also: How To Utilize WordPress Potential

5) Secure Your Web Server Configuration

Hosting company manages this particular task, but are they really looking after each and every website hosted within their environment? They probably want as few support tickets as possible, thus leaving your website’s server configuration open, which can be hacked easily.

Proactively, you need to make changes to secure up these security holes. The first thing to do is learn about the webserver configuration file used on your platform such as Nginx servers uses nginx.conf, etc.

These files are extremely vital as they allow you to execute server rules, including directives to improve the security of your website.

It also prevents direct browsing, which in return prevents unauthorized users from viewing the contents of your website.

6) Secure The Permission For WordPress Files

Let us understand it with an example: per se, you have set up the index.php file on your website, and you have permitted anyone in the world to update it.

What hackers could do is make some changes in this file, update it, and redirect each user arriving on your site towards their malicious website. This is just one of the many examples of security hack if you do not secure the permission for WordPress files.

It is the key to protect WordPress websites from hackers. The golden thumb rule has kept all files as 664, and the folders as 775. If possible, move them out of the public_html directory of your WordPress website.

7) Don’t go For Unlimited Hosting

Free or cheap hosting might be tempting, but it can cost your pocket later on. When you choose such services, you put your entire website on a single server.

You put your website among thousands of other websites supported by the same server. This creates a very large surface for security attacks, allowing hackers to break into your website.

If a hacker gets into any of the websites somehow, the security of your website is also compromised. Consider using the services of a good host provider who can offer security to your website individually.

Conclusion

When it comes to the security of a WordPress website, prevention is always better than cure. Don’t underestimate the damage a hacker can bring to your website.

Use these tips to foolproof your website from hackers. Along with, keep a regular backup of your websites if things go haywire.

Author Bio:

Brandon Graves is passionate about WordPress website development, working with HireWPGeeks in the USA. He provides tips and tutorials for Website security, error solution, Plugins development, easily migrating a website to WordPress, etc., Follow him on Facebook to get more technical news about WordPress.

7 Effective Ways to Protect WordPress Website From Hackers