As we know, WordPress is the most prominent Content Management System in the web market, and that is why hackers are consistently targeting websites that are built under WordPress.
WORDPRESS SECURITY THREAT
One of the main WordPress security threats is the hacking of a website. Here, we are not saying that only WordPress sites are targeted, but it has been seen that most hackers break down WP websites due to their increasing popularity and user-friendly features.
WordPress is an easy-to-use CMS platform that means a non-technical person who has little knowledge about coding can create and develop a website with ease. So, it also becomes easy for malicious hackers to hack WordPress sites.
What is the objective of the attack?
Usually, hackers want to destroy your site with the aim of sending spam and using your website for their illegal activities. In fact, they can use the botnets to restrict the websites and break the security of the secured systems. Thus, it is important for the one who is operating these sites should be careful against all these activities.
Danger to your WordPress Website
Well, we can divide the danger into two categories. The first danger is that hackers can break your password with the objective of entering your site as an administrator. It means that they will be able to enforce all sorts of changes to the site. In fact, they can also access the server and damage it.
The second danger is that they will not be able to head over to your website, but they will flood your server with multiple attempts to log in. It can cause undue pressure on the server and depending on the package it can also affect the host to block your website.
Here, we will discuss the common issues with their solutions that can help you fix security threats in your WP site.
1. You can create a new username for Admin
If you are using admin as your username, then it becomes easy for a hacker to guess your username and password. So, it is better for you to create a completely new username rather than sticking with the old one. To do that, you will be required a new email account. Then, you need to log out of your account and log in as a new user to your site. At last, you need to remove the old admin user by deleting your account.
In addition, you can also change the password from the database or achieve it with the help of plugins. However, there are some scripts that target ID 1 to hack the site. And, ID 1 belongs to admin, so, changing your ID offers protection to your account.
2. You Should Use a Stronger Password
Many website owners don’t make their admin passwords strong and efficient. It means that their sites are always vulnerable to attacks even if they have changed their login from admin. Well, one can find many helpful guides online that can help you in creating your passwords. You can create passwords that are easy to remember, but it will be difficult to break them.
You should also use different passwords for different accounts because the same passwords can make your accounts vulnerable. Therefore, it is always better to use different passwords.
If you want to create powerful and stronger passwords, then they should be easy to remember, and tough to break, they should not be too monotonous to type in, and you should create different passwords for multiple websites. Apart from this, many experts consider that your passwords should not follow a pattern that someone can guess. So, it will be better for you to follow the above rules, and create a strong password.
Another possible situation is to use LastPass. It is a service that produces very complicated and difficult-to-break passwords for you. In fact, you can use LastPass to create different passwords for different sites as well. That means you have to remember one password that logs you into the LastPass service and it will remember all your passwords. It also provides services for your mobile phones and tablets.
3. Manage Your WordPress Site Performance at Its Maximum Capability
With your site safe and secure now, you have to find out the ways to keep its performance enhanced. If your server is under consistent pressure from thousands of login requests, then it will affect the performance of your server. Thus, it will be better for you to seek help from your hosting company. They have some powerful techniques to help you in solving this problem.
In case, the hosting company does not have a solution or you regulate your server yourself. You have to make sure that you have the issue in the first place and can guess how bad it is. In order to do that, you just have to find out the number of login attempts generated on your account that you can use by looking at access logs.
Another possible fix is to move your site to a host who has impeccable facilities and willingness to handle the problem that you can decide by contacting them.
You can also use ModSecurity rules on Apache to restrict login attempts. However, if you want to use this solution you have to use Apache in the first place. You can also make password-protected access to the wp-login.php file and wp_admin directory. It means that any illegal person will have no access to your login page and this will help you in protecting your site from any malicious attack.
However, you can also update the WP-config.php keys. You can find the set of security keys that WordPress uses for recognizing multiple security descriptions. But the problem is that older versions did not have this feature. Therefore, it is important to update them consistently. After each update, every individual will have to log in again which automatically resolves the problem.
Find out the solution to the problem
The only way to make sure that you are safe is to trash everything after creating a backup. First, get a fresh copy of WordPress and then upload it to your server. You should deliberately check out the wp-config.php file to ensure that there is not a single line of hidden code in it that will compromise your new server. The simplest way to do that is to compare it with a sample file in your new WP copy and then copy wp-config to your server. After that, download all your plugins and themes to your site.
Once completing this, change all the passwords that different users use as the hacker or attacker may have changed passwords. So, you need to remove all unidentified users. Make sure that you are utilizing secure passwords and logins that are hard to guess. And, in the final step, you need to copy your media files from the wp/content upload directory.
Note: Don’t copy any PHP files, and ensure that you are copying media files only.
How to avoid security issues in the future?
It is impossible for you to keep your site completely secured and protected until WordPress creates some inbuilt security mechanism to protect websites. So, it is important for you to use the Login Lockdown plugins. This plugin is very powerful as it can work fine with all WP versions. It performs very well even if you have activated it with multiple sites.
In addition, you have to ensure that all your plugins and themes are current. Also, confirm that you are using the latest version of WordPress because the older version can compromise the security of your site.
If you have multiple sites, then you can use multisite or ManageWP which can manage your sites from one central location.
After tackling security threats to your WP website, you should seriously reconsider your logins and passwords to your hosting account and email that you use to set your passwords.