subject: How to secure a wordpress site from hacking [print this page] How to secure a wordpress site from hacking
How to secure a wordpress site from hacking
When one creates a blog using various wordpress websites, I am sure the last thing that is wanted is having all your hard work gone because of hackers. Wordpress websites provides an opportunity to many people to make money as a source of income to pay their bills but when these sites are being hacked into, ratings can go from a ten all the way down to a zero and that is bad for business. Hackers would use all kinds of worms, viruses, spyware and even malware to infect your personal computer and your wordpress sites. Therefore, one should be prepared for such a nuisance by taking necessary precaution when they intend to make wordpress a major part of your life.
The first step one should take is having a back-up on all the data that you have stored on the site into an external hard drive where you seldom have it attached to your computer. Back-up does not just mean the content but everything from the design to the layout to the content. That way, if anything happens to your account, you at least know where you are at and all you have to do is just to paste everything back to its original state. This in other words means that you do not need to go through the hassle of recreating everything from scratch. Usually a good plugin is used to back-up your data and a good option would be the wordpress database back-up plugin.
Secondly, speaking of plugins, remember to obtain your plugins from reliable sources. This is because plugins are usually free for everyone and sometimes they might be carrying unwanted viruses or worms. It would be best to obtain your plugin from the developer of the site and not other sites because the developer would be a trustable source for plugins.
Thirdly, you can ban IP addresses that tries to login into your wordpress account by installing the login lockdown programme on all your sites. What this programme does is that it records the amount of times an attempted login is made and failed. You can determine the amount of times of login that can be made and once the limit is reached, the programme would automatically ban that particular IP address.
Fourthly, make sure your username always changes. When you change your username frequently, hackers will have a hard time figuring out what is your login ID. This is because when you have created a wordpress account, the username would automatically be admin and every hacker knows this so, be wise and change in with various alphabets and numbers where hackers would have less than an enjoyable time getting into your account.
Lastly, create passwords that are not user friendly, meaning that this password has both alphabets and numbers some with caps and some small letters. Also, you should also change your passwords on a weekly basis if possible. It may sound like a headache but it is simpler than recovering a hacked account.
With these tips, your wordpress accounts would be safer and you have less to worry about.
