Protect Your WordPress Website

Updated June 7, 2024

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Three Ways To Keep Your Site Safe

Building a website has changed in the last few years. With the rise of services like SquareSpace and content management systems like WordPress, the technical barrier for running a website has been dramatically lowered. While this is great in general for businesses that want to be online (making it easy to drag and drop your way to a useable website), it does pose some security risks if you don’t protect your website properly.

Wrap Your Tools

WordPress is one of the most widely used content management systems in the world. Accounting for around 60% of all websites. Because of this level of usage, WordPress site obviously receives more than their fair share of website hacks.

So, if the fear mongering above has got your heart rate going, what can you do to protect yourself if you used WordPress?

1. When you update your WordPress, make sure that the updates are backward compatible with other changes you have made to your site. It’s not enough to simply hit the update button, or turn on auto updates and think everything will be fine. Updates can cause cosmetic changes to your site, but also change things behind the scenes too. Especially if you’re using plugins…
2. Make sure your plugins are kept up to date. 25% of website hacks came through plugins that had not been kept up to date. In particular over the last year Gravity Forms, TimThumb, and RevSlider. (Please note that these plugins all had security updates available shortly after the issues were spotted, but that the webmaster had either forgotten to or chosen not to, install them).
3. Hire someone to protect it. One of the first things we do when creating and launching a WordPress site is to modify some of the standard settings and follow security best practices. There is additional software — like Sucuri — to add an extra layer of protection. Some companies turn to Website Application Firewalls to protect their sites from unwanted hackers. Others are finding companies to host and manage their website for them, thus allowing them to focus on managing their business and not their website. It lets someone else to worry about keeping the back door locked.

What’s Next For Your WordPress Site

Are you worried your website might have been hacked? Do you think you have malware or a spam problem on your site? Let us know, and we’ll see if we can help you protect your WordPress website.

Photo credit – Top: John Fischer
Photo credit – Bottom: Pixelbay