Whether WordPress or not, your website is potentially vulnerable to attacks.
Recent reports have shown that Google blacklists thousand of websites containing malware and phishing attacks every week.
Given how serious potential WordPress security breaches can be for your business, we hope this article will inform you why you should always closely monitor how secure your website is.
The importance of WordPress security
There may be many smaller business owners who think their site is in no danger as they do not consider their business big enough to be at threat from hackers. Given that there is money to be made from selling personal information, hackers typically don’t care how big or small your business is. As you never know when or how your business is going to be attacked, it is essential you protect your site and use the necessary WordPress plugins to increase your security.
A business’s reputation can be seriously damaged due to a hacked website. Hackers commonly install malicious software or viruses in order to extract the data in the background, which can result in a loss of trust in your business and customers turning to a competitor.
When your site is attacked, the most immediate threats are the theft of customer’s personal and billing formation. As a result of the theft of customer information, the damage to your company’s reputation could also mean the loss of future income, not just the short term, but also the long term as you will need to invest extra money to rebuild your reputation and restore customer confidence.
How to Protect Your WordPress Website from Hackers
- Strengthen your passwords – Always remember to use a strong password, even though it can sometimes be difficult to manage a long list of different passwords, it is absolutely necessary to do so. To make sure you have a strong password, you can use a password generator which respects the rules of password setting. Also remember to change it every two or three months and have it written down in a secure place.
- Change your username – By default WordPress sets the administrator’s username as “admin”. All hackers knows this and it is the first username they will try when attacking your website. If you want to increase your website’s security, always personalize your username.
- Two-Factor Authentication – WordPress is compatible with various additional security features such two-factor authentication, which requires the admins mobile phone to login and gives an extra level of security.
- Constantly update your website – One of the biggest reasons hackers succeed in hacking a WordPress site is due to the software used to run it becoming outdated. Whenever your website sends you an alert to update your software, it should be done as a priority. WordPress puts a lot of effort into improving it’s security features and sends constant updates as proof of their work in defending your website from hackers and unwanted attacks.
- Perform regular backups on your website – Your car may have a lock, but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t also be insured against theft.
Backups are like that insurance policy if your security should fail.
You should always have your backup data stored on an external device (such as cloud storage). Having a secure, recently scheduled backup can be achieved by using UpdraftPlus. While a backup isn’t necessarily going to protect you from hacking threats, it will help you restore your site should it be maliciously hacked or defaced. Having an UpdraftPlus backup of your site can also be extremely helpful if a virus infects your PC, or an employee commits a negligent or malicious act.
Hackers can attack multiple sites at once, at any time and without reason. It doesn’t matter if you are a huge company that delivers financial services or small start-up selling handcrafted gifts, you need to invest in improving your WordPress website security.
Hopefully if you follow these recommendations, your website and your customers financial information will be protected and you will retain the trust and confidence of your customers for years to come.
