Tag: Website Security

WordPress Website Security: 7 Proven Security Strategies

Are you concerned about your WordPress website security and unsure about the necessary steps to take? Look no further, this blog is here to help!

Have you heard that WordPress is used by more than 455 million websites and over a million WordPress theme is available on the internet? This indicates that the web hosting behemoth controls an amazing 35% of the global market share for websites. Each and every month, WordPress is used by at least 400 million people all over the world. As a result of this, it should be clear why there is a rising demand for you to make your WordPress site as resistant to cyberattacks as is humanly possible.

Nonetheless, despite the fact that it is not one of the top 50 SaaS firms, WordPress is one of the most widely used content management systems in the world. But, if the content is susceptible to cyberattacks, what good is it to use a CMS that is considered to be excellent?

In point of fact, 90% of all stolen content management system websites in 2018 were powered by WordPress. On the other hand, just 2% of the data leaks were caused by a vulnerability in the basic security of WordPress. In other words, users were the ones responsible for exposing their websites to a variety of risks, most commonly through the use of insecure plugins.

It is probable that the very last thing you want is for your website to be found amidst the turmoil of a cyberattack if it is powered by WordPress, and this would be the absolute worst-case scenario. Due to the ever-increasing dangers that may be found on the internet today, ensuring your website’s safety should be one of your top priorities when developing it.

To assist you in maintaining the safety of your WordPress website, we have developed a list of the seven most effective tactics and best practices. Continue reading to find out how to keep your website and its data secure.

7 Tips to Help You Maintain WordPress Website Security

To get things started, I’ll provide you with some shortcuts (pardon the pun) that you may implement on your WordPress website in order to make it more secure.

1. Choose a WordPress Host that Offers Security

One of the most important things to think about when it comes to risk management for your project is selecting a trustworthy WordPress host. Because the WordPress host you choose plays such an important part in the overall protection of your website, you simply cannot afford to choose any old hosting service. You need to go with the option that offers multiple layers of security at the server level.

You shouldn’t be in a hurry to choose a host for your WordPress site. Rather, take your time looking into the various possibilities. It goes without saying that you should steer clear of hosting services that are suspiciously inexpensive.

In the end, the fact that they are selling their services at prices that are relatively cheaper than average is almost always an indication of concealed problems. If you are not very knowledgeable about technology, you should probably avoid the temptation to host your WordPress sites on a personal virtual private server (VPS). Finding a host that is capable of successfully addressing security events is the superior alternative. This would be a web host service that you can put your faith in.

You can feel certain that your website will be protected in every possible way if you use the services of a reputable hosting provider and sign up for their plans. You can also investigate the numerous tiers of recurring remote support that all these hosting providers make available to their customers.

Generally speaking, the ideal WordPress host is one that conducts virus scans on a daily basis and provides help around the clock. Check to see if the potential WordPress host you’re considering uses an automatic distributor to remain on top of their customers’ calls; this is one of the most common ways that 24-hour support providers handle their customers’ calls.

2. Ensure that your version of PHP is always up to date.

Your WordPress website will not function properly without the Hypertext Preprocessor, also known as PHP. On the server for your website, you should always utilize the most recent version.

As a general rule, each new release of PHP receives full support for around two years until being replaced by a newer version. Throughout the time span of two years, the developer may become aware of various vulnerabilities in the software that may require periodic fixes and patches.

PHP 7.4 is currently the most up-to-date version of the PHP programming language. Despite this, PHP.net continues to offer support for versions 7.2 and 7.3. In those other words, WordPress users who are still operating PHP versions 7.1 or lower are at a greater risk of being targeted by cybercriminals (Also Read: PHP 101).

According to the statistics provided by WordPress, an astonishing 32 percent of its customers are operating their websites using an outmoded version of PHP. It is terrifying to consider the variety of vulnerabilities in cybersecurity that they consistently expose their websites to. While it is true that business owners and website owners need some time to test the compatibility of their code with new versions of PHP, this is not an acceptable justification for running a website without the appropriate security support.

There is more to consider than just the layout template when developing a responsive website. Using an old version of PHP can have a negative influence, both on the performance and the efficiency of your website, in addition to the security risk it poses. Using the most recent release of PHP on your WordPress website is always the wisest course of action to take. Social platforms have positive as a service (CPaaS) solutions that make it simpler to ask for the assistance you require from service providers when you are unsure of what steps to take in a certain situation.

3. Ensure the safety of your passwords

You might be surprised to learn how many individuals don’t bother to set secure passwords, despite the fact that this piece of advice might come across as patronizing and a little bit like a broken record.

As according to SplashData, the number “123456” was the most commonly used password throughout the entirety of 2018. If that information did not surprise you, the following item on the list was, wait for it, the word “password.”

Using such passwords makes WordPress sites an easy target for hackers, which is something you probably already know without the help of a web expert. Because of this, mobile device management, often known as MDM, is an essential component of most projects. It indicates that you will have a device and team that are only devoted to helping you safeguard your device.

You can contact digital customer support for assistance in choosing a safe password for your site if you are having trouble doing it on your own. If you’re curious what digital customer service is, it’s a system that, rather than using a VoIP phone system, provides answers to your questions using various digital platforms. Some examples of these platforms are text messages, chat messaging, and social networking.

Anyone who is attempting to safeguard a digital system should follow the best practice of using a password that is both unique and difficult to guess on average. Although a strong password is a great strategy to protect your WordPress site from intrusion, many users complain that they end up forgetting it after making it too complicated.

You can store the password to your WordPress account in a database that is encrypted on your personal computer, or you can use a password manager that is accessible online. There are various options available to you. This ensures that your passwords in the cloud storage are protected.

No matter whatever option you go with, you need to make sure that the password you use for your WordPress website is both secure and, most importantly, distinct.

4. Ensure that your WordPress website has two-factor authentication.

Two-factor authentication, also known as 2FA, is an additional layer of internet security that required people to authenticate their identity through the use of not one but two distinct methods of authentication. The majority of the time, this will consist of either a code that is texted to the person’s device or emailed to their address or a confidential personal inquiry.

Increasing the level of protection on your WordPress website by implementing a procedure known as two-factor authentication is an efficient approach to do it. It is also helpful for tasks like sharing encrypted files with one another. The very greatest feature is that you get to pick the two authentication modules that you put into use.

A lot of people decide to utilize the Google Authenticator app, which will deliver a one-of-a-kind code to their phone in the form of a text message. The application will, without a doubt, make certain that you are the only person who can get such SMS sent to them.

5. Only install plugins that are safe

Installing plugins that provide users with assistance in enhancing their online activities and distinguishing themselves from the crowd is one of the leading design trends for WordPress websites. Nonetheless, this liberty may at times represent a security risk in and of itself.

According to Wordfence, insecure plugins were responsible for approximately 60 percent of the data breaches that occurred among WordPress users in 2016. Hence, as you can see, operating your site with a plugin whose level of security has not been certified may put your website in jeopardy. As a result, it is in your best interest to install plugins on your website that are both secure and reliable.

If you want to make sure that this is the case, you may start by checking in the “popular” or “featured” category on the WordPress site or getting it directly from the developer. Both of these options are good places to look. Always make careful to read the tiny print to confirm that they have concrete policies about security.

Some plugins even give users access to built-in malware scanners, firewalls, and automated database backups. There is no doubt that this is a very good sign to keep an eye out for. Even after you have installed plugins that are known to be secure, you must always keep them updated. If you do not download the most recent bug fixes, security updates, and version upgrades, you could be putting your plugins in danger and opening a conduit for cybercriminals.

6. Set the maximum number of times a user is allowed to try to log in.

There is no limit number of times that you are allowed to attempt to log in to your WordPress account when it is set up by default. If you are unable to remember your password, you will not be locked out of the website and can continue to try to access it. Even while you might think that this is a benefit if you have a history of forgetting passwords, it actually puts your WordPress sites in danger.

You need to understand that cybercriminals are also aware of this vulnerability, and they take advantage of it. In most cases, they start by compiling a list of common usernames and passwords, and then they add any user data that they have stolen or bought. After that, they go to websites powered by WordPress and employ bots to try hundreds of different login and password combos in a span of less than an hour. There are instances when it is successful and other times when it is not. A forceful assault is the name given to this method of computer hacking.

But, if you restrict the number of times a user can attempt to log in to your site, you can significantly reduce the likelihood that your website will become the target of malicious cyberattacks. If you put your max try limit to three, for example, once that number has been reached, the website will prevent access to that person (or bot) for a certain amount of time.

7. Use SSL to encrypt the data on your website

Last but not least, installing a secure socket layer is among the most effective measures you can do to safeguard your WordPress website (SSL). When you install an SSL certificate on your website, all of the data transfers that take place between your server and the site’s visitors will be encrypted. Also, it will change your website’s protocol from HTTP to HTTPS. An SSL is an absolute must if your organization intends to enhance its approaches to e-commerce.

You see, hackers are able to employ something called a man-in-the-middle attack on HTTP websites, which allows them to examine the data that users to your website transfer to the server. This can lead to data breaches and other consequences of cyberattacks. A website that uses HTTPS encrypts all of its site traffic and data, making it impossible for anybody else to view it.

Happily, the procedure for getting an SSL certificate may be described as being rather basic. It only requires that you buy it from a Certificate Authority and then install it on your WordPress website to complete the process.

Then you will need to adjust your website address such that it displays the prefix HTTPS. Certificate Authorities are capable of helping you with the purchasing and ultimate installation of the program by utilizing the appropriate cloud-based call center software. It is imperative that you acquire an SSL certificate as soon as possible if your website does not already have one.

Author bio

Travis Dillard is a business consultant and an organizational psychologist based in Arlington, Texas. Passionate about marketing, social networks, and business in general. In his spare time, he writes a lot about new business strategies and digital marketing for DigitalStrategyOne.

Website Security Recommendations After Russian Attack

Fight back against increased cyberattacks with these free tools and resources

The WordPress security company Wordfence urged WordPress users to keep an eye out for hacking activity after the Russian attack on Ukraine. It also provided tips to help avoid becoming a victim of state-sponsored cyberattacks.

A new version of the Shield’s Up site recently added more information about possible cyberattacks originating from Russia, according to the United States Government Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Secure websites protect search visibility

The security of a website is not considered an SEO issue by most members of the SEO community. Cyberattacks, however, can have a significant impact on a website’s visibility in search results and the ability to display relevant content.

The security of websites is an essential part of SEO, as hacking and other security breaches can negatively affect search visibility.

Wordfence recommends higher vigilance

The prevalence of state-sponsored cyberattacks is on the rise, especially on government and infrastructure websites.

In the current situation, there may also be a threat to commercial websites. Wordfence urged publishers to increase their awareness.

At this early stage, Wordfence acknowledged that state-sponsored hacking events have not yet increased, but nevertheless advised publishers to stay alert as the days and hours proceed.

Here are the steps you should take to protect yourself from cyberattacks according to a Wordfence alert:

  • Read up on phishing and social engineering.
  • Using more than one authentication method will ensure you are protected.
  • Developers of WordPress plugins need to be extra cautious so that they are not compromised and used to spread exploits to all their client sites.
  • Be vigilant about your log files so you can spot suspicious activity.
  • Be sure to keep an eye out for new files (and malicious ones) on your website.

Tips on Cybersecurity

The United States Government CISA also published tips and a list of tools and resources that can help organizations prepare to prevent cyber intrusions.

Some of the measures provided by CISA include:

  • Identify and fix known security vulnerabilities in software.
  • Use multi-factor authentication (MFA).
  • Remove outdated software that has no updates available.
  • Replacement of any system that relies on a default/unchangeable password
  • Register for Cyber Hygiene Vulnerability Scanning with CISA -vulnerability@cisa.dhs.gov

Free Resources For Cybersecurity

A comprehensive list of free tools provided on the CISA website can assist in preventing or mitigating cyberattacks.

Below is a partial list of free tools and services:

  1. Cisco Immunet for Microsoft Windows

2. Windows Defender Application Guard

3. Free Protection from Distributed Denial of Service by Cloudflare

4. Secure Socket Layer Certificate from Cloudflare

5. Blocks malware and viruses-infected sites with- Quad9 for Android

6. Quad9– blocks malware and viruses from accessing computers and devices

7. “Project Shield“- provides free protection against DDoS attacks against news, human rights, and election monitoring sites.

8. Vane2– A free vulnerability scanner for WordPress

Consider enhancing your security

Virtually every website is vulnerable to a variety of attacks at any given time.

Due to recent developments in Ukraine, however, the possibility of Russian state-sponsored hacking has increased.

It is important for WordPress publishers to install a trusted security plugin like Wordfence and increase security using the free tools and tips listed above.

References

Review the Wordfence Advisory

The State Of Vigilance – Ukraine Is Being Attacked

Check out the U.S. Government’s Cybersecurity Advisory

Shields Up

Government of the United States of America’s Recommendation Free Security Software

Services and Tools for Cybersecurity

Quick Tips To Make Your WordPress Website Secure

WordPress platform is one of the most popular Content Management System (CMS) that powers more than 30% of websites. As this platform grows day by day, hackers have been watching it and are now beginning to specially target WordPress websites. These hackers do not care what type of content are you providing on your site, they won’t spare you. There are certain security measures that you need to take in order to secure your site. This is a serious concern that needs to address carefully.

To secure your WordPress site there are few things that you need to keep in mind. In this blog, we will share our 10 Best Tips to keep your WordPress website secure.

1. Hosting Company

The first step you can take is to choose the best & most secure hosting provider that provides multiple layers of security. It may be looking good to go with the cheaper hosting service after all saving money on your website hosting means you can spend it elsewhere within your organization. But, we suggest you not take this for granted. It is a good decision for now but after it could turn into a nightmare. The most common threat is that our data could be completely erased or could be stolen by hackers.

Spending more money on the hosting service will make sure that you are adding an additional layer of security that is automatically attributed to your website. Choosing good hosting will significantly speed up your WordPress site. Faster loading of the website means more business.

2. Use Premium Themes

The logic behind using the premium themes is that these are coded by highly skilled developers and are tested to pass multiple checks right out of the box. We highly recommend using the WordPress Premium themes because WordPress premium themes look more professional and have more customizable options than a free theme. Moreover, they also provide great support and you can fully customize the theme according to your needs. Above all, you will get regular theme updates which are beneficial in many ways.

There are many sites that provide you with nulled or cracked themes. These themes are the hacked version of the premium theme. that you probably think it is a good idea to save a few bucks. But don’t be tricked by them. These free pirated themes contain malicious code by the hacker, you could end up destroying your website and database or log your admin credentials.

3. Security Plugins

Well, you can’t be always there to secure your website from hackers or malware. It is a time-consuming task to regularly check up on your website security for malware, until or unless you regularly update your knowledge of coding practices. Even if you try to do that you won’t be able to spot the malware code. Lucky for you there are people who think of that and developed the security plugins.

A security plugin will work 24/7 to scans for malware and monitors your site regularly. These plugins offer security activity auditing, remote malware scanning, blacklist monitoring, effective security hardening, security notifications, and even a website firewall (for a premium user).

4. Unique Password

Password is one of the most important aspects of website security and unfortunately often overlooked. To secure your website it is essential to use a complex password or one that is auto-generated with a variety of numbers and special characters. If you are using simple passwords like series of numbers or letters then you are at risk of being exposed because it’s an easy guess for the hacker. You immediately need to change your password right away to avoid any loss of data.

5. Disable File Edit Option

When you set up your WordPress there is a code editor option on your dashboard. This editor is used to modify the code of your theme & plugin. You can access it by going to Appearance>Editor or Plugins>Editor. It is a good feature as long as you are the only one using your site dashboard. It can dangerous because if hacker get access to your WordPress admin panel, they can inject malicious code to your theme and plugin. Some the corrupted code is so subtle you may not notice anything is wrong until it is too late. So when you are about to make your website live we suggest to disable the file edit option. You can do by simply paste the following code in your wp-config.php file in your WordPress folder.

define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);

6. SSL Certificate

The Single Socket Layer also known as SSL is a protective shield for all kind of websites. It is initially used to make your site more secure by encrypting the information before it is transferred between their browser and your server. It is recommended for all the sites that carry an sensitive information like passwords, or credit card details. Without it all of the information between the user’s web browser and your web server are delivered unsecured way. By adding the SSL you making your site more secure and your data less likely to be stolen.

Recently Google also recognized importance of SSL certificate and said that site with SSL certificate a more weighted place within its search results. Well nothing good comes for free and SSL certificate also have price range around $70-$199 per year. Moreover, almost every hosting companies provides free SSL certificate which you can install on your website.

How To Prevent And Resolve An SEO Spambot Site Attack

If you’ve been the victim of a spambot assault, take the following measures to help safeguard your site and restore your rankings.

Spambot attacks are on the rise, with a bad bot accounting for 25.6 percent of all internet traffic, and increasingly complex tactics are being utilized to overcome standard security measures.

SEO spambots must be stopped before they undermine enterprise and small website optimization efforts and cause significant decreases in traffic and revenue.

If you’ve been the victim of an attack, you’ll find instructions on how to recover and restore your ranks here.

You’ll also learn about intelligent preventative and high-level monitoring systems.

What Exactly Is An SEO Spambot Attack?

SEO spambots are similar to the pleasant Google bots you want crawling your site. Instead of indexing your content, these bots will enter your website by exploiting flaws.

Why?

They’re doing spamdexing.

Essentially, these spam attempts will attempt to rank material that would not rank otherwise by using your site. Bots generate a lot of money for hackers, and their spam methods cause your site’s SEO and income to suffer significantly.

In addition, black hat SEO methods are used to conceal the attack.

A spambot can accomplish a variety of harmful things, including:

  • Spam content.
  • Scraping of content.
  • Sniffing out credentials.
  • SQL injections are used to update parts of a website.
  • Insertions of links
  • Create a redirect.
  • Referral spam from Google Analytics.
  • Spam based on user-generated content (UGC).

The primary purpose of spam is frequently to put links into your website. Hidden links will aid the hacker’s website and revenue while negatively impacting your site.

We’ve also seen redirects produced in order to generate bogus URLs that lead to the hacker’s website.

In each of these scenarios, the spambot attempts to exploit the site for its own benefit.

Display advertising is occasionally introduced into a site by SQL injection, but the majority of these infiltrations are for links or redirects to a website that produces cash in some way.

Detecting an SEO Spambot Attack

Spambots work hard to avoid your standard detection systems. Links or pages are inserted or generated with the greatest care taken to conceal them from the site owner.

Sometimes you’ll discover that your CMS has critical flaws and that you’re just another victim of an attack.

However, there are a few red signals that something is wrong:

  • Traffic dropped.
  • Pages from several websites.
  • GSC cautions.
  • Google Search cautions.

Enterprises and more established websites will have a variety of detecting methods, such as:

  • Firewalls.
  • System of logging.
  • Systems for monitoring.

If you utilize WordPress, there are several critical weaknesses that hackers will exploit.

Using plugins like MalCare or Wordfence, which provide many levels of security to your site, you can diagnose assaults on it.

Additionally, you may utilize Cloudflare’s bot control system to take proactive efforts to halt bots in their tracks.

Step-By-Step Instructions For Resolving A Spambot Attack

Resolving a spambot assault necessitates a few procedures that will assist you in stopping the attack and restoring your site.

Prevent Bots from causing further damage.

During the next two phases, your site will be exposed until you figure out how the spambot got into it and performed its harm. As a result, before inspecting your site, you should implement bot protection.

Cloudflare’s bot management solution employs AI and machine learning to combat malicious bots.

To provide real-time protection, the instrument will employ a three-pronged approach:

  • Any traffic irregularities will be detected using behavioral analysis.
  • Machine learning will utilize billions of data points to detect bots accurately.
  • Fingerprinting will also be used to categorize previously discovered bots.

Rich analytics and logs will improve your site’s security and give you more time to clean it up.

Conduct a Site Scan to Identify Affected Pages

Now that your site has a high degree of security in place to prevent further spambot assaults, it’s time to perform a scan. We use the term “scan” in a wide sense since you can:

  • Run an analytics report to identify pages where site traffic has dropped significantly.
  • Screaming Frog or anything similar should be used to do a scan.
  • FTP into your site and search for manually produced pages in the directories.

You may also manually go through each page on your site, inspecting the source code for sites that may have hidden links.

Screaming Frog will also assist you in locating hidden redirection.

If you have logs, make careful to examine them to see where the traffic is coming from and to identify any pages on the site that may have been generated by the bot.

A significant amount of effort will be spent assessing what needs to be cleaned up on the property.

Discover how the site was hacked.

Secure sites are not breached. Spambot assaults, for the most part, search for existing weaknesses that you haven’t fixed. Sites may have been infiltrated as a result of:

  • Ineffective plugins.
  • Outdated software.
  • Injections into SQL databases.
  • FTP/Admin passwords are simple to guess.

The first step is to confirm that all of your site’s software and plugins are up to date. Old scripts must be updated, and if you discover scripts that you did not develop, they must be deleted.

Spambots may leave a script on your server in order to get future access to your site.

It is recommended that you collaborate with someone to go over your logs and determine how the assault occurred.

Before proceeding with the next instructions, you should fix these vulnerabilities. Cloudflare should also provide an added degree of security.

First, clean up the top pages.

Cleaning up your site is determined by the sort of assault that happened. If your website contains user-generated pages spam or mass page creation, you’ll have to go through the laborious process of evaluating which pages are needed and which aren’t.

You must next remove the spam-generated pages.

However, for sites that aren’t created by spam, you should perform the following:

  • Examine your metrics.
  • Mark pages that have been significantly impacted.
  • Begin by cleaning up your top pages.

To assist recover their rankings, your revenue-generating pages must be focused on first.

When we mention “work,” we mean that you must thoroughly search all of these sites for:

  • Redirects.
  • Hidden hyperlinks
  • Malicious advertisements or code

Typically, you’ll need to tidy up and inspect each page by hand.

Even if you only placed a link in your site’s footer, you should still go through all of your pages to ensure that there isn’t anything else you’re missing on each page.

Once you’re certain that all of the spam has been deleted, it’s only a matter of waiting to see what happens to your rankings.

Keep an eye on the site.

Monitoring your site should become a regular part of your routine. You should keep an eye on your site in several ways:

Keep an eye on your rankings and stats for any changes.
Keep an eye on the site logs for any strange behavior.

You must determine how the assault took place and identify the point of entry. However, there are situations when the spambot will install a backdoor on your server, then return to wreak havoc.

It is critical that you continue to monitor your site for any unusual activity so that you can address any concerns as soon as possible.

Restore from Backup is optional.

If you’re really fortunate and notice the assault early enough, you may be able to restore your site to its prior condition by taking a snapshot. However, if you have fresh customer orders or data entered into affected databases, this solution will not work.

Unfortunately, your backups will still include the initial vulnerabilities that allowed the attack to succeed.

At this stage, your best choice is to restore the site using Cloudflare protection and then address the attack’s primary weaknesses.

If an assault stays undetected for weeks or months, your backups may be corrupted, leaving this strategy ineffective.

Conclusion 

Spambots pose a threat because they can go unnoticed for extended periods of time. If a bot gets past and inserts links or material into existing pages, your company’s reputation will suffer and your SEO efforts will be derailed.

Furthermore, these link insertions are frequently one or two words that are linked to the site, and the language is designed to not appear to be a link.

Detecting such an assault can be incredibly challenging.

We’ve also seen spambots use real files to produce hundreds of pages on a site, ensuring that new articles are never displayed in a CMS dashboard.

Clearing away spam at this level took two months, thus the client’s website suffered substantial harm.

Stopping an SEO spambot campaign necessitates close attention to detail and constant monitoring. To resist spambot assaults, Cloudflare is a viable solution, coupled with many tiers of firewalls, logging, and monitoring systems.

You should also think about user permissions and access, as well as other techniques to protect your website’s server.

How To Reduce Plugin Security Risks Once and For All

If you use WordPress, you know how much of a godsend plugins can be.

The ability to add functionality to your website quickly and easily via installing and activating plugins is one of the reasons why WordPress reigns supreme in the web design and development world. However, when thinking about security, plugins can cause some issues.

Often times the way hackers or malicious actors gain access to WordPress websites are through security holes in plugins. That means that the more plugins you have, the more holes there could possibly be.

In order to reduce this risk on the website, we will outline the best practices for reducing WordPress plugin security risks.

Use Fewer Plugins

This may seem like a no-brainer, but many people overlook this as a possible way to keep their site safe. As we explained earlier, the more plugins you have the more risks there could be.

That’s why a great way to reduce the security risks surrounding WordPress plugins is to avoid using them for adding very small pieces of functionality for your site.

So, if possible, add functions and custom code directly instead of relying on a plugin to do that for you. While this may seem like a tall order, it is certainly easier than hiring a developer to clean up a hacked WordPress site.

Uninstall Plugins That Haven’t Been Updated

It’s an unfortunate fact that sometimes developers are not able to keep their plugins up to date. And one of the top reasons WordPress plugins are updated is because new security issues being patched or fixed by the developer.

That means if you have a plugin on your WordPress site that hasn’t been updated by the developer in months or years you should look for an alternative. Not only will plugins that are regularly updated work better, but they are also often more secure than those who go without updates for a long period of time.

Implement A Firewall

Even if WordPress plugins are updated frequently, that doesn’t 100% guarantee that they will be secure. That is why it’s also a common security practice to implement a firewall on your WordPress site using a firewall plugin

This will eliminate the ability for hackers or malicious actors to access your site through security holes they may find in your plugins. In addition to being a best practice for reducing plugin risks, it will also help you in a broad range of other areas. Generally, WordPress firewalls stop things like brute force attacks, and other common vulnerabilities experienced on the WordPress platform not related to plugins.

Using a firewall is like WP Security 101, and having plugins that do the job is one of the things that us love WordPress (most out of the box website builders have no firewall feature, and generally weak security in comparison).

Keep Plugins Updated

Some people never check back in on the plugins they use to add functionality to their WordPress website. This can be a huge issue. Because as we mentioned before, the main reason why developers update plugins aren’t just to upgrade their functionality, but to make them more secure as new security standards are developed and as new techniques hackers use are revealed.

Luckily, WordPress provides a way to keep your plugins updated right in the back end of the admin panel. So check the plugins area of your WordPress admin often to ensure all of your plugins are continuously up to date.

Delete, Not Just Deactivate

It’s a common thing for people running WordPress websites to find a new plugin that meets their needs or to realize that a particular plugin isn’t providing the value you thought it would. Most commonly, WordPress admins just deactivate this plugin.

However, if the plugin still exists on the site then it could still be presenting security holes for hackers or malicious actors to exploit. That is why instead of just deactivating the plugin, you should delete it altogether. Additionally, you should check your WordPress plugin directory on your server to ensure no files were left over when the plugin was deleted from your site.

Choose Well Rated Plugins

The WordPress plugin directory provides a rating system and feedback system that is directly integrated into the platform. So a good way to ensure a plugin is going to both work well and be secure is to check these things out. By checking the ratings, you are able to see what other WordPress admins think of its functionality.

Additionally, you can see the frequency of updates that have been pushed out for any particular program. And as we established earlier in this article, it’s essential for a WordPress sites security that plugins be updated regularly. The WordPress team also provides a support forum, where often you will find discussions about a particular plugin.

This forum will give you even more insight into a plugin and it’s developers nature. In addition to the WordPress plugin directory and forum, a simple Google search will reveal lots more opinions of the plugin.

Only Use Safe Plugins

Often times you will find plugins off the WordPress plugin directory. While some of these plugins are okay, you need to be wary of them. The WordPress plugin directory checks certain things like minimum security and performance standards.

That means plugins that don’t go through this system could possibly be insecure without the developer even knowing. So if you do decide to use third-party plugins, be sure to get them from reputable sources whom you can source good reviews for on the web. Often times WordPress plugins that are paid have a higher degree of quality than those that are free.

Conclusion

The plugin function is one of the things that is keeping WordPress as the #1 CMS out there.

However, with security becoming a bigger and bigger concern, you need to know the best practices when using plugins. Adding extra functionality to a website with a click of a button is a huge advantage.

However, if it comes at the cost of comprising your site’s security, you should just find other ways to add that functionality to your site. But, the issue of WordPress security doesn’t just stop with good plugin practices. There are other ways to keep your site secure that you should think about if security is one of your top priorities.