WordPress sites are the primary target for hackers worldwide – because they are so popular and because bad security practice makes them very easy targets.
Why? Mainly because hackers are looking to make money from bogus links from your site to others, or worse still trawl for personal data, including financial details.
Hints and Tips
- Do not use the same display name as your user name. This gives hackers clues about your login details
- Do not have any more users on the system than is absolutely necessary. More users = more hacker entry points
- Never, ever set your user name as Admin
- Never use a password that contains any references to your company or website name. Auto- generating an obscure password is generally a very good idea. Test it’s strength here https://strongpasswordgenerator.com/
- Always research your plugins thoroughly BEFORE installation. Badly programmed, incompatible and old versions of plugins are the primary weak points for your website.
- Free plugins, beware. Always read their terms of use as they usually indemnify them from any issues resulting from their use. If in doubt only use wordpress.org or other well known companies.
- Make sure you have security and scanning modules installed
- Make sure that your file and table names and folder structure is altered for maximum security. Make sure the server is configured to maximise security and that your file permissions are restricted.
- Update your theme, core system and plugins on a regular basis
- Take you own back up of your site files and databases at least once a month.
- Have a knowledgable web developer on hand to help investigate and identify the issues and implement steps to block the attackers. Be prepared to pay money for this kind of crisis management – unless you have a paid for contract in place.
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