How To Protect Your WordPress Site From Hackers
We Are Here to Help You Build a Strong, Secure Site
If you are worried about your WordPress site falling victim to hackers, we are here to give you the protection and advice that you need.
WordPress sites, like any kind of website out there, are vulnerable to hacking. As hackers grow more sophisticated, it can become challenging knowing how to best protect your site. As well as being the experts in SEO Essex business owners trust, we can also help you to protect your WordPress site. Here’s how.
How do hackers work?
When we use the word ‘hackers’ we are rarely talking about individual people trying to gain access to your WordPress site. More often than not, bots are used to infiltrate websites, working much more efficiently and accurately than a person could. Bots often use user agents in order to fool websites and sneak past their defences. A user agent is information a browser sends that tells a website what browser it is (Chrome, Firefox, Vivaldi etc), and what operating system it is being operated on, such as Windows 10 or Mac OS X.
Firewalls
One of the easiest ways to protect your site is by using a firewall, which can be programmed with certain rules. If a bot does something suspicious and breaks a rule, like asking for too many web pages too quickly, the firewall will then block it. It can also be programmed to block certain user agents, such as those pretending to use outdated systems such as Windows XP. Firewalls are intelligent, and will allow genuine bots like Bing and Google to continue to access your site. For these reasons, they are invaluable.
Another way that you can bolster the security of your website is by using WordPress’s premium service. Yes, a big part of the appeal of WordPress is that it is free to set up and a run a website, but you do get what you pay for in the long run. WordPress researchers are always looking for exploits, and once they are aware of one they will update the premium version of the site’s firewall to provide those who have signed up for the service. This can be weeks before the exploit is addressed by the plugin or theme developer.
Back up your site regularly
It is really vital that you take the time to back up your site. It is incredible how many WordPress users fail to do this, leaving them without anything to fall back on if their site is taken down. It is recommended that you make a backup of your site every day, so you have an up to date version to hand at all times. Do not worry, we will be able to take care of this for you. These backups will be stored in a cloud storage location, so that you can access it from anywhere and get your site back up and running as soon as possible.
Keep an eye on logins
You may also consider limiting logins to your WordPress site. Bots often try to gain access to a site by repeatedly entering usernames and passwords until they are successful. The key is to be able to differentiate between a bot and a genuine user. You could establish a rule that someone is blocked from being able to enter your site after entering a set number of incorrect username and password combinations. Then those who are logging in in good faith can continue to access your site as planned.
We are here to help
If all of this seems a little daunting, we are here to help. We have extensive experience when it comes to helping our clients set up WordPress sites, and our website maintenance packages are very popular.
We will make sure that your WordPress site is running smoothly at all times, using the latest tools to predict issues and nip them in the bud. In the event that something does go wrong, we will be able to deal with the issue quickly and get your site back up and running in no time at all, causing as little disruption to your business as possible.
Get in touch today
If you want to find out more about us and how we can help you to protect your WordPress site, then please do get in touch with us today. A member of our friendly team will talk through all of the options available to you, so that you can choose a website maintenance package with total confidence.
