Whenever we think of WordPress plugins, the first thing that comes to our minds is WordPress security plugins. Obviously, for a good reason. People care a lot about their hard work, privacy, and the time spent on those websites so much. It’s only fair to be wanting to protect them at all costs.
It’s not a matter of want. It is a must to secure WordPress. When you browse every WordPress blog to find ways to protect your websites, you get many results regarding it on the internet. But the one thing that is the most common suggestion and stands out the most is, yeah, you got it right, a WordPress security plugin.
But are they worth the hype? (spoiler: yes) Why exactly should we use them? How many security plugins should we use? Ugh, questions without answers can sometimes be so annoying. So, let me put your curious minds at ease by answering those very questions through this article.
Why Should We Use WordPress Security Plugins?
Now, one could say that we can secure websites without using any security plugins. But I must respectfully disagree. We can use many WordPress security tips to protect our WordPress. However, there is an extent to where those tips work.
Taking care of the content is hard enough; how could we find the time in our tight schedules to keep track of things that might harm our websites? Even if we find some time for regulating our website’s security( because it deserves your time), will we be able to secure our WordPress? Not really. After all, we are mere humans, and perfectly protecting a website is not within our means.
That’s why technology exists, to make our lives easier and do the things we cannot. Security plugins target multiple problems at once, raising barriers from everywhere to reduce security vulnerabilities as much as possible.
However insignificant the threat is, these security plugins will discard every single of them. Rest assured, trust your plugins to take care of these security issues and focus on giving the best content from your websites to the world.
How Many Security Plugins Do We Need?
Security plugins indeed do a great deal to protect WordPress, but too much of something can also be a bane. “The more, the better” policy doesn’t apply to security plugins. That is, we need to keep the use of security plugins minimal.
But why? Security plugins’ purpose is to keep hackers at bay, so wouldn’t having many security plugins increase the website’s protection? Nope. Even these plugins can pose a threat to your WordPress. But not all the time. Using many plugins increases security vulnerabilities. Eventually, increasing the chances of it getting hacked.
The duplicate nulled versions of the plugin and the ones abandoned by developers are not best for your website. When the number of security plugins increases, the need to update them all surges too. And we know that these updates are not automatic. If you forget to take care of at least one of them, they will turn out to be a security vulnerability to your WordPress, creating an opening for attackers.
I cannot give a specific number regarding how many security plugins we need to use. It all depends on what your WordPress needs the best. But I strongly recommend using a few but efficient security plugins like ‘Hide My WP.’
What Are Few WordPress Security Vulnerabilities? How Can the Hide My Wp Plugin Help?
The following points discuss the security vulnerabilities and the ways to deal with them using the Hide My WP plugin:
1.Exposed WordPress Login:
The first step to protecting your website is to protect your login page. The easy way for hackers to access your WordPress is by entering the login credentials to it. They wouldn’t know the password to your website. That’s why they use brute force to get access to your WordPress.
Brute force is a simple method used by hackers with the help of bots by trying out series of passwords. It’s like a trial and error process that stops when they obtain the correct credentials for your website login. And you know what happens when they find the correct details.
How Will Hide My Wp Help?
Hide My Wp plugin, as the name suggests, can hide that you are a WordPress user. It lets you change your website’s login page URL or add a key to it.
Doing this will make it hard for attackers to find out your WordPress login page. When no one knows your WordPress login URL, they cannot access the login page. That rules out the possibility of a brute force attack and increases the security of the website.
2.No Firewall Protection:
Not having firewall protection is a hindrance. A firewall secures your website from every threat and gives 24/7 protection. It helps filter the incoming traffic to your website and allows only the good traffic that does not threaten your website’s security.
It blocks the disagreeable traffic and bots that might harm your WordPress. This filtering tightens your WordPress security. Not having a firewall protecting is like an invitation for bots to barge in and exploit the security vulnerabilities.
How Will Hide My WP Help?
Hide My WP has a firewall powered by a ‘smart IDS engine’ that blocks any lethal attacks like SQL injections, XSS, CRSF, brute force attacks, and many more. It also notifies any suspicious behavior with full details of the security breach. It informs the user about:
- Value (How they hack you?)
- Page (Which plugin did they use?)
- Impact (How dangerous is that?)
- IP/ users (Where are they from?)
3.Accessible Source Code:
Letting outsiders access your website’s source code is a huge mistake. Source code comes in handy for a hacker. He needs it to access your WordPress completely.
It exposes all the flaws in your WordPress that helps the hackers exploit these vulnerabilities. Eventually, they’ll gain access to your WordPress. Hence, to stop that from happening, we must hide our website’s source code.
How Will Hide My WP Help?
Hide My WP allows users to replace anything in their source code. Doing this helps hide any sensitive information or resources from a hacker’s view so that they wouldn’t exploit it.
4.Enabling Direct Access To PHP Files:
When a hacker manages to access your WordPress, he gets access to the admin panel of your website. Then, he can use the editor function from the dashboard in the admin panel and add malicious code to your website that will harm your website.
How Will Hide My WP Help?
Hide My WP plugin has a feature (among many more) that will block direct access to PHP files. Doing this will help stop outsiders from messing with your website’s PHP files, thereby increasing your website’s security.
There are many other ways in which the Hide My WP security plugin helps protect WordPress:
- It can hide that you are a WordPress user.
- It will help detect attacks and stop them automatically.
- It can rename plugin and theme folders.
- It can protect your WordPress from unknown hackers or bots via a ‘trust network.’
- It allows you to block and permit visitors from specific countries.
- It protects from new attack patterns.
- It sends you details like the attack value(How they hack you?), Impact(how dangerous is it?), Attacked page(which plugin did they use?) and their IP addresses.
- It can also disable directory listings.
- It creates a dynamic list of Bad IP addresses for future references.
- It can hide your WordPress from theme and plugin detectors.
- It helps minify HTML and CSS.
- It has anti-spam included.
It is a plugin that targets many security issues and decreases the need to use many WordPress security plugins. It is a trusted member of Envato Elite since 2013, and more than 28000 WordPress users love it.
Recap
- WordPress Security plugins are closely associated with website protection. They act as barriers from external threats like hackers and bots. Security plugins help keep the website’s security in check and act as a personal guard to your WordPress.
- It is necessary to use security plugins because we cannot take care of all issues by ourselves. They are popular and highly recommended by everyone as they live up to everyone’s expectations. They are efficient in warding off any attack.
- However, just because they are efficient doesn’t mean we can use tons of them. We must use a limited number of security plugins to confirm that your WordPress will not become vulnerable any further. Using too many plugins may create new security vulnerabilities to your website.
- We highly recommend using a multi-purpose security plugin like ‘Hide My WP’ that deals with many security issues.
- Hide My WP is a widely trusted plugin that hides that you are a WordPress user and has many other admirable features that work very well in securing your website from hackers.
Related Article: How to use Hide My WP Lite to hide your WordPress login?