how to secure your site data on wordpress

We all know WordPress is powerful, secure and all but things go wrong sometimes. Since it’s the most widely used open source content management system it’s no surprise that it’s also a target for hackers and all kinds of malware attacks on the web. With such a high risk of cyber attacks and system malfunctions, it’s crucial to make your site’s security a priority if you want to protect your site and your data from damage or loss. There are , fortunately, a set of simple security measures that you can take to protect your website data and minimize the risk of being hacked. And here are some of them.

Backups

It seems like it’s an established rule by now that backups are important and regular backups are the guarantee that you can get your site data back if something goes wrong. But still lack of backups constitutes a major cause of data loss on the web, since website owners oftentimes don’t take them seriously enough.

There are tons of different ways you can backup your site database,including plugins, specialized services and there is also a manual way to do it. If you’re looking for a reliable service to take care of your site backups, 10Web might be a good option for you. Its powerful backup plugin will let you schedule full automatic backups, and store the backups in the cloud, including Dropbox, RackSpace, Google Drive, etc. One of its main features is its differential backups, that will save only the data that has been changed since the last backup, and save you time and space along the way. You’ll get a minimum of 10 GB of free 10Web storage space on Amazon S3 and multiple file formats for saving your data. You can give it a try, since it’s affordable and gives you a 14-day free trial period before you get it.

Usernames and Passwords

You should be really cautious when it comes to setting a username and password to your website. Avoid setting static and predictable combinations as your password, since

there are bunch of ways hackers use to steal passwords. Brute force attacks use tools that try thousands of password combinations within a very short time so give your passwords and logins a careful thought.Make sure you have unique, complex and long passwords and usernames, that will include both uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers. It’s recommended to have at least 12 characters. The longer the password the less vulnerable your website will be. Also, it’s important to update your logins and passwords every once in a while across your websites.

Limited Login Attempts

Since WordPress doesn’t set any limit on the login attempts to the website , that’s another gap how the hackers may break in. Limiting the number of the attempts one can access your website is one way to avoid brute force attacks and make the hackers stay away from stealing your data.There is no default functionality for limiting login attempts but there is a bunch of plugins in the WordPress directory, both free and paid, that will provide additional level of protection and secure your website and its data.

Stay Updated

WordPress 3.7 brought itself automatic background updates that include minor or security updates, meaning when a new version of WordPress comes out your site will be automatically updated.You should however keep an eye on the major WordPress releases and update your website manually. It’s just a matter of a single click. Well, as simple as it may sound but keeping WordPress core files, plugins and themes up to date can strengthen your site protection and keep hackers away.

Security Plugins

There are thousands of various plugins in the WordPress directory, and huge portion of them aims to protect your website from hackings and all kinds of threats on the web. Those plugins offer a wide range of features, from malware scanning to adding two authentication, detecting threats,blocking brute force attacks and more. You can find free as well as paid plugins for any budget, you just need to look through the directory and identify the ones that fit your needs and your budget.

Hide Your Admin Page

Since the admin page is the first entry point to your website, hiding it from indexing might also help you stay away from hackers. Once you hide your admin page from indexing of search engines, it’s harder for the hackers to find it.

Disable File Editing on WordPress

Another security tip is to disable file editing on your website. By default WordPress allows editing PHP files of plugins and themes from the admin panel based on the roles you select. So disabling this feature will potentially help you avoid making changes to your theme files by hackers, which if done van take you lots of hours and efforts to fix. Disabling file editing on WordPress will require you to add just a line of code in wp-config.php file.

These are some basic tips on how to strengthen the security of your website and protect your data from attacks and hackings. Although these tips can’t guarantee full insurance from hackings but can help you at least minimize the threat.

Author Bio:

Gayane Mar is the founder of WPCapitan.com, a WordPress enthusiast and blogger. She is a contributing author to a plenty of well known websites and blogs and enjoys sharing her experience and expertise to help people around on web.