It is very important to keep your website safe from hackers. Here are 5 simple ways to improve the security of your site.
1. Use a secure Username and Password
The most basic thing to start improving the security of your website is to use a secure username and password.
Avoid using “admin” as a username, as this is the first thing hackers use to try to access a website.
Always use strong, complex passwords containing a combination of lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers and special characters, with a length of at least 10 characters.
2. Backup your website
Make backups periodically, if you add content often, make them more frequently.
It is also convenient to create backups before making updates, adding plugins or making other changes to our website.
Sometimes the hosting itself creates backups automatically, but just in case, it is better that you also make them.
Keep backups in other places besides the hosting itself, such as on a hard drive or in the cloud. That way in case of virus, hacking or hardware failure you will be able to recover your website files, so that you can go back to the way your web was before the problem occurred.
3. Keep your WordPress, themes and plugins updated
Many websites are hacked because they are not updated.
It is very important to keep your website secure by updating your WordPress, plugins and the theme you are using every time the update notifications appear. By doing so, we make it more difficult for hackers, which attack the security vulnerabilities that appear by not keeping everything updated.
4. Use HTTPS and an SSL certificate
In case you don’t already have it, you should add HTTPS and an SSL certificate as soon as possible to create a secure online connection.
What is HTTPS?
HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is a communication protocol used to provide security on the Internet.
What is SSL?
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is another protocol that transfers the user’s personal information between the website and its database, encrypting the information to prevent others from reading it while it is in transit.
There are paid SSL certificates and there are free such as Let’s Encrypt.
5. Use security plugins
The fewer plugins you use the better and it is recommended to use only the really essential ones, but a security plugin should be the first one to be included in your website.
One of the most popular security plugins is Wordfence, which offers many functions, among them are those of:
- Block IPs when multiple unsuccessful attempts are made to access the website.
- Scan in real time the files of the installation, warning if there are modifications.
- Require security level for passwords.
- Firewall and more functions.
Wordfence has a free version and a premium version.
Two other options are the plugins iThemes Security and Sucuri Security.
Simply choose one of them and install them on your WordPress.
To keep WordPress even more secure we can use the plugin Two factor Authenticator. It adds an extra layer of security when accessing your website, in addition to the password it asks for a double verification through applications such as Google Authenticator or by email.
Conclusions
These are five ways to make your website more secure, but there are many more, some of them are common sense, as is the case of using a secure internet connection, and others are more technical that require more advanced knowledge of WordPress, programming, database, etc…
But if you follow these five tips to improve the security of your website, you will make it more difficult for hackers to access it, and in case there is a problem with your website, you can solve it quickly with backups.