Secure your website in 7 steps!

Secure your website in 7 steps

You increasingly read about websites that are being hacked. WordPress websites in particular seem to be popular with hackers. However, this is not so strange, because many websites use WordPress. This makes it a popular target for hackers.

1. Update regularly

It is important that you update WordPress regularly. You also need to regularly update the themes and plugins that you have installed. Older versions sometimes contain leaks that hackers can use to hack your website. If you update regularly, hackers cannot take advantage of it.

You can protect a website against hackers, but there is always a chance that your site will still be hacked. No security is waterproof. However, by properly securing your website, you can reduce the chance of your site being hacked.

2. Don't choose a default username

One way hackers try to hack websites is through brute force attacks. They try to guess the username and password in order to log in to the dashboard.

On many WordPress websites the username is 'admin' and hackers know that. They then only have to guess the password. So don't make it too easy for hackers and choose a username that is not easy to guess!

Do you use a username that is easy to crack? Then it is advisable to change the username.

3. Choose a strong password

In addition to a hard-to-guess username, you also need a password that's hard to crack. If hackers happen to guess your username correctly, they will also have to guess the password. If you have a difficult password, this is virtually impossible.

Therefore, choose or create a password that consists of uppercase letters, lowercase letters and foreign characters. If you want to create a good password, you can do this very easily with the password generator.

4. Limit the number of login attempts

With a strong username and a password that is difficult to guess, you are already well on your way. However, there is one more thing you can do to ensure that brute force attacks have no chance of success at all.

Limit the number of login attempts!

Hackers usually use computers and they can enter different usernames and passwords very quickly one after the other. If there is no limit on the number of login attempts, the computer will continue until the correct username and password are found.

To prevent this, ensure that everyone can only attempt to log in a few times. If someone fails to log in, this person should be automatically blocked. If you want to set this up, it is best to use the plugin Wordfence use.

5. Scan your website regularly

The second phase of website security is detecting a hack. To do that, you need to install a plugin that scans your website regularly.

Wordfence is also the plugin that we recommend you use on your site. You can set Wordfence to scan your entire website every day. You also have the option to use the premium version of Wordfence and then you can even have your website scanned several times a day.

If Wordfence encounters something that is not right during a scan, the plugin will let you know immediately. You will then receive an email message and you can immediately solve the problem yourself.

6. Prevent a DDoS attack

You've probably heard something about DDoS attacks. In a DDoS attack, an attempt is made to take down a website by sending as much traffic as possible to it, so that in the end the server can no longer cope.

Although it is difficult to prevent a DDoS attack altogether, there are a few things you can do against it.

Have you already installed Wordfence? If you haven't done so yet, it's best to do so first. Wordfence contains various functions that can help you prevent a DDoS attack.

Firstly, Wordfence has a firewall that you can set yourself. If visitors visit your website too often, something that is typical for a DDoS attack, you can automatically block these visitors. Normal visitors can continue to visit the website and will not be blocked.

You can also use the built-in 'Falcon Engine'. This is a cache plugin that makes your website faster and smaller. This makes it more difficult for hackers to take your site down with a DDoS attack.

7. Make a backup

If you have applied all the information from this article, then your website is quite well secured. However, there is always a small chance that your website will be hacked, because no security is foolproof.

That is why you must make a backup of your entire WordPress website. From both the files and the database! If your site is hacked, you can delete the hacked version and restore the old files.

You can quickly restore a hacked website!

You can make backups manually, but the easiest way is to use a plugin for this. There are several plugins that allow you to make backups. We use the plugin ourselves BackUpWordPress for this.

If your website has been hacked, don't forget to have your site checked for leaks. After all, someone has managed to hack your website and if you do not find out and solve the cause, someone can hack your website again!

Source: deliberation