You may feel confident that your site is secure if you’re running on WordPress. But the fact is, every platform has security issues that you need to be aware of - especially if you’re handling sensitive information. If you’re not, is there a reason to?
Of course. There are a few reasons why adding extra layers of security to your website can be beneficial. One thing to look at is Google; security on WordPress does greatly have a factor in ranking for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and visibility. In addition, you want your business to have a reputation for a secure website. Below, we’ll be going over some of the fundamental ways to improve security for your WordPress website.
Securing Your Site
Updating Your PHP
This will be one of the first things you should always do to make sure you’re up to par with proper security measures. Once an update is available, WordPress will alert you in your Dashboard that it’s ready. You will always want to keep your PHP version updated to the latest version, assisting greatly in security.
However, sometimes PHP updates can cause other potential problems on your website. It would be best to consult with developers to see if the update is ready for your WordPress site today.
Security Plugins
While these are nice, you won’t want to rely on them exclusively for security. There are plugins that can assist, however. This includes plugins that alert you of any infiltration attempts, or ones that can restore your WordPress site to a previous, healthy state. While not entirely reliable, taking these extra measures will always be good for your website and your reputation.
It’s important to note that when finding plugins for WordPress, especially ones in relation to security, you will want to make sure that they are reputable and have a significant number of reviews. Use your discretion when downloading any plugins that are new, or with low reviews.
SSL Toggle
Before we go into toggling it, it’s important for you to understand what SSL is, and how it can help. SSL stands for “Secure Sockets Layer”. When you visit a website, you may have noticed that some start with “https”, and some start with “http”. The “s” in this stands for “secure” - so you can always visually tell when SSL is toggled for a website. Now, SSL encrypts connections between your website and visitors browsers, creating a safe experience.
There is no reason not to have SSL enabled. If you go to your website, and notice that it doesn’t have that security in the HTTP, then you should get it enabled as soon as possible. Especially because for Chrome users, Google will warn the visitor if they visit a site without SSL enabled, which will affect traffic.
Filtering Special Characters
One of the more lesser known ways of improving security is to disable special characters on the forms on your website. Whether it’s a contact form, wholesale form, or comment sections, it’s possible for a database injection attack. This would affect the backend of your website, and could cause a lot of issues.
To resolve this, there are plugins that exist to help with this. Alternatively, getting an experienced WordPress developer to help prevent any malicious code from getting stored in your database. Once the damage is done, it becomes a lot more complicated to fix.
Using a Secure Theme
WordPress has a variety of themes - some look very nice, and it may blind you from the fact that some can affect security. There is a way to make sure the theme you install is safe, and that’s to see if it’s WordPress Standards compliant.
”It’s Too Late”
One of the worst things to discover is that it’s too late. Don’t panic though – Security breaches are more common than you may think, and it is bound to happen eventually. There are some things you can do in the event that your site does have a breach, that I will briefly go over.
First thing you’ll want to do is turn on maintenance mode for your website. Doing this blocks access to your site, which is important to keep your business and visitors safe. Get everything handled, and once it’s secure, you can take it out of maintenance mode.
Next, you will want to contact your developer as soon as possible. If you don’t have one immediately available, us at e-dimensionz Inc. offer immediate support and assistance for emergencies and security breaches. We will help get everything straightened out, and give you guidance and direction on what may have caused the issue. You will also want to make sure Google didn’t blacklist your website during this.
Regardless of how secure you think your WordPress site is, it can always be more secure. We offer a Security Audit to identify any vulnerabilities, and to help with potential attacks that may have already occurred.
