If you are the owner of a tech company and make use of a WordPress website, as your official company website, then a WordPress security checklist is as important for you as creating a home security checklist for yourself. When you leave your home for whatever reason you do need to close all your doors and windows. The same thing you must do in case of your WordPress website.
In the year 2020, when the number of threats from hackers is at an all-time high, WordPress security is not something that you must take lightly. WordPress can be hacked very easily in the present time, in case if you don’t take the security of your website seriously and take preventive measures for the same. Taking proper measures will also keep your website free from WordPress Security vulnerabilities.
Hackers also are clever enough to not attack all WordPress websites, they have the tendency of attacking only the ones which are characterized by vulnerabilities. If your website is secure, no hacker will spend his time to look for tiny loopholes in your WordPress security plan, which may provide you access to your server.
To create a security plan, you need to first understand why your website needs a WordPress security checklist you will not be able to take appropriate proactive security measures to keep your company website safe from hackers.
This particular blog focus on the steps that you need to take to keep WordPress secure. However, before moving on the main section, it is important that you are informed properly about a few more things that are relevant to this topic.
Why Should Hackers be interested in your website?
There is a that might baffle you from time to time, especially if you are the owner of small scale business, you do not understand what interest a hacker could have on your website. This is the question that will be answered in this particular section.
You must be thinking that your business website, is only visited and checked out by a few hundred people then how can it be so important for any hacker. Well. there is more than one reason why such a thing is likely to happen.
Even though it is true that most kinds of hacking are done due to some kind of political reasons, which involves defacing of certain websites and sending of specific political messages. Hacking of this sort is generally done locally and is not as mainstream as media turns it out to be.
Most of the hacking is done for far more devious and dangerous reasons. Not going too deep in them, one very popular example of such kind of hacking is when someone tries to break into the security of your website with the aim of making money by some kind of fraudulent means. In short, your website could become involved in criminal activity without you even realising it. In addition to that, there are other negative implications, so of which are:
- A hacker can make use of your website as a spamming proxy.
- If your website is hacked, the reputation of your company can be tarnished, in addition to the amount of embarrassment you will have to go through.
- There are costs involved in recovering your website, which can be low, in case you have a backup, and if you don’t, your website may require a complete redevelopment.
So next time if you think that your website is safe, just because you are the owner of a small-scale business. Think again.
Now let’s move on to the main section of this blog, which involves the WordPress security checklist.
Steps you must remember to secure your WordPress website
- Make sure that the version of WordPress is up-to-date
There are often times when you hear that people are disabling the core updates of WordPress, as they think that updating might break one of their WordPress Security plugins. This reasoning, however, is immensely flawed. It is quite obvious that between a website with a temporarily broken plugin and a hacked one, you will definitely prefer the one which is secure.
When you choose to update the version of WordPress, all the available security plugins are automatically upgraded into new and compatible ones. Make sure that you spend money to hire WordPress developers so that things like this can be taken care of properly and timely
- Do not modify the WordPress Core
Whenever a developer takes the decision of changing the core source files of WordPress, the WordPress security checklist does not remain as much help as it is supposed to be. Modifying these files will prevent WordPress from automatically and properly update when it needs to.
This situation leaves your website dead in the water, as it leaves your website vulnerable to the security attacks from the hackers. The solution to this is, that you will have to look for fixes yourself or you will have to leave it unpatched. Now it’s true that the first method involves a lot of hassle and effort, but the second one is far more damaging, as it leaves your website open to security threats.
- Make use of a security key generator
WordPress security keys generator is a feature that will come in handy, more than you think. When you create a password or user ID for your website manually then there is a risk of not being secure enough. This is where WordPress comes into play, its key generator feature automatically chooses the strongest password and ID possible, so that it can remain safe from hackers.
Conclusion
This blog takes you through the entire WordPress security checklist, and it must have given you ideas about the things you can do to actually secure your WordPress website. Even though it is true that if you are informed you about what to do, you can do them yourself, however, if you hire a WordPress developer, who holds experience and expertise in this field, or invest money on WordPress development services to get the best results.
