WordPress is a secure CMS (Content Management System) out of the box. But there is more you can and should do, to secure your WordPress site.
Many of these security improvements are easy to implement and will take no more than a few minutes of your time. Thankfully, the WordPress community has made the procedure effortless. They have introduced several plugins to serve this purpose.
In this blog, we will review the 8 different types of WordPress plugins designed to help you secure your WordPress site.
Additionally, we will also suggest some of the most popular and powerful WordPress security plugins. These will be according to their relevant security plugin type.
1. 2-Factor Authentication (2FA)
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is often referred to as two-step verification. It helps to secure your WordPress site by requesting the user for two authentication factors. This helps verify their identity before they log in.
The first authentication will prompt the user to enter the password they have set. The second verification step can vary. You can set a secret question or code to verify your identity.
These days, Google Authenticator app is quite popular. It sends a secret code to your phone which you can use to log in.
For this feature, the popular but free WordPress plugins to secure your WordPress site are:
2. Obscure the Login Page
Another way to secure your WordPress site is to hide/change the URL of your login page. Why hide the URL?
By default, your login page URL is wp-admin or wp-login.php. Which is predictable and can be hacked by using brute-force attack.
You can hide/change your login URL by adding a few lines of code (to be discussed in the next article) or by installing a WordPress plugin.
Popular WordPress plugin for hiding/change the login page URL are:
3. Limit Number of Login Attempts
Another way to secure your WordPress site is by decreasing the number of login attempts.
It is a basic yet efficient method for avoiding hackers attacks and unapproved manual login attempts. It also counters the aforementioned brute-force attacks made on your site.
Following are the WordPress plugins that can be used to limit the number of login attempts on your site:
4. Keep Track of Dashboard Activity
You have to keep tracking dashboard activities. This is a critical step if you have several users involved in your site.
Tracking a dashboard activity is a tedious task. But it will help you track down any unauthorized users. Thusly, it is a great way to secure your WordPress site.
You can keep tracking the dashboard activities from one place by using these WordPress plugins:
5. Enable a Web Application Firewall
WAF blocks unwanted attacks on a website. The process is easy to follow and does not require you to be a wiz.
All you have to do to secure your WordPress is to enable the firewall by installing a WordPress plugin.
Some most popular WordPress plugin of WAP are:
- Wordfence Security – Firewall & Malware Scan
- NinjaFirewall
- Spam protection, AntiSpam, Firewall by CleanTalk
6. Add reCAPTCHA
You can make your site’s login process even more secure by combo-ing it with reCAPTCHA feature.
reCAPTCHA feature invokes the user to input what they see in an image as text. It is a useful way to stop botnets from attempting to log in by brute force. You can also add the reCAPTCHA on the contact form, commenting and reviewing area.
The feature may be simple in nature but has a versatile application. it is even considered to be one of the best ways to secure your WordPress site.
Popular WordPress plugins for reCAPTCHA are:
7. Use SSL to Encrypt Data
It is a good idea to have the connection between your web server and your visitors’ browsers encrypted. The data transmitted from both, the user’s and the server’s, end goes through an encrypted layer.
It is a simple step but will dramatically secure your WordPress site. Google also ranks your site better if it has an SSL certificate.
You can install the plugin in WordPress for your site for this purpose. Some well-known WordPress plugins for SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) are:
8. Make Backups
The tips you have read so far are really effective in protecting your site against hackers. However, making a regular backup of your site is far more significant than all those other methods combined.
You can quote us on that!
Here’s why. Your site would come under attack thousands of time. It is important that you fend them off by following any of the aforementioned security protocols. However, there is the chance that a hacker manages to break through the protection. Or worse, your hosting service loses its data.
Backing up your data can ensure that even if the world comes to an end, you can easily reset it. Just upload your last saved backup and you will be exactly where you left off.
There are many WordPress plugin out there who can do this for you easily. The most popular ones are:
- UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin
- BackWPup – WordPress Backup Plugin
- WordPress Backup and Migrate Plugin
We hope we have provided you some useful tips to secure your WordPress website. The process is quite trivial and the time you spare for it should be considered as an investment in your business.
We had created a generic checklist for WordPress security tips some time back as well! Be sure to check it out and let us know your thoughts below in the comments.
