There is no denying the fact that when it comes to hacking, hackers will leave no stone unturned. Besides their persistence, another common cause of security breaches is mistaking which we as individuals often make. Careless employees very often leave their passwords on post-it notes; so your office colleagues can easily hack into your accounts without your knowledge. You will find that like these instances, there are many other ways in which security within an organization can be easily compromised. One of the gravest blunders is when web hosting provider overlooks pertinent WordPress updates for their sites.
Why is a WordPress site prone to security breaches?
When you are relatively new to WordPress sites or you are just starting off, you may not be well informed about the possible dangers you could face when you are online. This is because WordPress as a web designing tool is very simple to use. It can be used by any person even he does not have a lot of technical know-how and expertise. So, you really do not have to be a webmaster to be able to exploit the features that WordPress offers. At the same time, you need to be diligent and careful when using the tool. So, when you are not quite confident about how to fix WordPress issues, you should ideally turn to professionals who are equipped to protect the site from malicious attacks and malware.
What are the security issues in a WordPress site?
Although initially, you may not understand the security threat that may raise their ugly heads soon enough, you start to get inkling a few months later. You slowly realize the dangers which running WordPress sites can bring out. Perhaps the biggest mistake that WordPress site owners make is that they forget to keep their theme and core up-to-date.
You must remember that WordPress constantly updates the software so as to keep hackers at bay. On the one hand, the hackers are busy figuring out new ways to infiltrate the system. They will come out with bugs to threaten your site’s security. On the other hand, even if you are aware of the need to update the software, you fear that doing so may make you lose all that you had so carefully built. But, if you are prudent enough, you will soon understand how important it is to make sure that you can restrain hackers from manipulating and controlling your site. Choosing the right web hosting provider can help you remain current with latest WordPress updates.
The truth is that if hackers are keen to infiltrate your website, they will be devoting a lot of time to understand exactly how WordPress works and where its weaknesses lie. They will soon know the exact version of the software which you are running and become aware of the drawbacks in that specific version. So, if you can continuously renew your WordPress software you will make their task very difficult. They will probably not be interested in devoting any more effort or time to look for weaknesses which have not yet come up to the surface.
When the hacker is able to identify your site’s theme and core, he can successfully copy your website using that information. When he is convinced that it is worth the effort to compromise your site, he will look for online backups of your website. He will then try to emulate the site to find the easiest and most effective way to take advantage of your website.
How can you protect your WordPress website?
- To protect your site, you have to keep the theme up-to-date. This is a fairly simple and hassle-free process and WordPress makes it easy through single-click installs. You can also do the core updating process manually. You need to ensure that the software is regularly updated to avoid anything from going wrong in the future. When you are not sure about whether it is time to do an update, you can rely on notifications from WordPress. WordPress notifies when the most updated and recent versions are available.
- One of the biggest advantages of using WordPress for your website is that you can customize the site according to your wishes. With the help of the plug-ins, you can freely customize the site. You will be able to choose from a huge variety of plug-ins, some of which are also free. But the quality of plug-ins may not be uniformly superior. So, you will come across poorly designed plug-ins too. These can become causes for concern if you are not cautious. They are mostly obsolete and have been coded poorly. When you have such plug-ins on your WordPress site, you can be almost certain that hackers will be able to breach the site.
- So, you need to choose the plug-ins carefully, ensuring that you only pick out the safe and effective ones. You need to take some time to identify the good plug-ins from the website which may have both useless and useful ones.
- Once you have been able to choose the right plug-in, you need to see if it up-to-date. When you are not sure about this, it is not wise to download the plugin. You may be exposing your site to a lot of danger by doing so. It will make your site vulnerable and obsolete plug-ins will never be compatible with the recent WordPress versions.
- When you search for plug-ins away from the WordPress repository, you are taking an even greater risk. This is because by doing so; you will actually be placing your faith in a third party developer. If you do not know this developer, you should ideally not download the plug-in. This is because it is very common for hackers to build free plug-ins. These are designed to mimic the real plug-ins and are meant to trick you. So, you often end up downloading a plug-in that seems to be great in your eyes, but it is actually baiting and you get trapped in the process.
So, you need to remember that when WordPress is the basis for your online business or for your blogging site, you have to make sure it is very well protected from the hackers. You should, therefore, devote a lot of energy and time into making sure that the theme and core of your WordPress site are updated. You must do a background check on the plug-ins.