From a beginner to an advanced WordPress user, securing a WordPress website should always be a priority. Ever since WordPress started gaining popularity as a CMS, it’s also attracting unwanted attention from hackers.
If the hacker can manage to put his finger on a single crack in your WordPress, he then will have the power to destroy all of your hard work. It’s not even something we’d wish upon on our enemy.
Hence, it’s a must to secure your WordPress. But of course, every problem comes with a solution. I am here to provide you with just that. This article will help you learn the best free ways to secure WordPress websites.
Why Securing Your WordPress Is Necessary?
WordPress is a widely used CMS and helps a lot of content creators around the world. But it has got vulnerabilities that outsiders can exploit to get access to your website.
Once an attacker manages to hack your website, he’ll have complete access to everything in it. He can use your website for his gain by redirecting your visitors to another website or by collecting your traffics’ data by injecting malware to their devices using your website.
He might even use the data they collected from your website and ask for ransom. It sounds unpleasant because it is. But what can you do about it? How do you stop it from happening? This article’s sole purpose is to answer these exact questions.
Best Free Methods to Secure WordPress
So far, we have discussed the importance of securing your WordPress, but now we shall go deeper into learning the best free ways to secure WordPress website from attackers:
1.Hide My Wp Lite:
Hide My WP Lite is a free version of the premium WordPress security plugin Hide My WP. One of the most common WordPress vulnerabilities that hackers use to intrude on websites is less secure WordPress login pages.
The default login page of WordPress is known to hackers as well. Therefore, it will be easy for them to use brute force attacks to sneak into your website once they get their hands on the WordPress login page.
Brute force attack is the method hackers use to try various usernames and passwords with the help of bots until they find the right one to gain access to your website. Hence, it is crucial to hide your WordPress login page. Hide My WP Lite can do just that. It helps change the login page URL or add a specific key to the login URL.
2.Strong Passwords:
It’s the same old typical advice you might think. Nevertheless, it’s just as effective. Even though this is something we have in our control, we still ignore the necessity of using strong passwords. We use the most commonly used passwords and provide the hackers with an easy way into the website.
I hope this serves as a reminder for all WordPress users to use unpredictable passwords and make it as hard as possible for hackers to use brute force. It is also good to change the passwords from time to time to secure the WordPress website.
3.Hide Source Code:
Hiding your source code plays a vital role in protecting your WordPress. When your WordPress source code is visible to everyone, it’s easy for outsiders to analyze and grasp the vulnerabilities in your website.
Using these loopholes, hackers find a way to access your WordPress. Hence, it is wise to hide your WordPress source code. But the free method is by disabling the right-click option using javascript.
Disabling the right-click option might not be enough to stop the attackers. Thus, we have many security plugins like ‘Hide My WP’ that help hide source code. But something is better than nothing, right?. Here is the code to disable right-click on your website.
<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript">
function disableselect(e){
return false
}
function reEnable(){
return true
}
//if IE4+
document.onselectstart=new Function ("return false")
//if NS6 if (window.sidebar){ document.onmousedown=disableselect document.onclick=reEnable
}
</SCRIPT>
Note: Take expert advice before making any changes to your code because changing code might be harmful.
4.Two-factor Authentication:
If a hacker manages to find the correct password to your WordPress, then using a Two-factor authenticator is the ultimate way to stop them from accessing your WordPress.
Two-factor authentication requires you to agree from a different device to a login entry after entering the password. This method gives you the power to decline access to your website if you aren’t the one who entered the password into your WordPress.
We have free plugins like WP 2FA, Google Authenticator, WordPress 2-Step Verification that help add Two-factor authentication to your WordPress website and increase your website security.
5.Limit Login Attempts:
By now, we have established that brute force works by trying out various login credentials multiple times to find the correct ones. We can put an end to brute force attacks if we manage to limit login attempts.
We have free plugins like WordPress limit login attempts that’ll help you restrict multiple login attempts. These plugins will block the specific IP address/ and username from making any further attempts to retry the login attempt after reaching the specified limit making a brute force attack impossible.
6.Disable File Editing:
We have talked about how to stop outsiders from gaining access to your WordPress. If we aren’t fortunate enough to restrict them from entering the website, we can still raise other barriers to block them from taking further action.
When a hacker gets access to your WordPress admin panel, he can use the code editor function from the dashboard to enter malicious code into your plugin and themes file. The intrusion is so subtle that you wouldn’t be able to notice it.
Slowly it’ll eat away your hard work, just like a parasite. Here is the code that allows you to disable plugin and theme file editing.
define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);
All you have to do is paste this code into your wp-config.php file. Doing this will stop hackers from messing with your website.
7.Hide wp-config.php And .htaccess Files:
Allowing access to wp-config.php and .htaccess files is just as bad as permitting access to plugin and theme files. Thus, we should hide these files from outsiders viewing them.
But this method is suggested to advanced WordPress users. You must proceed with caution while making these changes because any mistake will make your WordPress inaccessible. I suggest you back up your website before making any changes. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
Add the following code into your wp-config.php file to hide it:
<Files wp-config.php> order allow, deny deny from all </Files>
Similarly, add this code into your .htaccess file to hide it:
<Files .htaccess> order allow, deny deny from all </Files>
Make sure to back up your WordPress before you try out this simple method.
How Can Hide My WP Help!?
I have provided you with free ways to help you secure your WordPress, yet it wouldn’t be enough. Free methods can only scratch the surface and give you minimum protection against external forces attacking your website.
These methods will protect your WordPress to an extent. But for complete protection, it is necessary to use advanced security plugins like ‘Hide My WP.’ This plugin will shield your WordPress from all sides and provide you with good security protection.
It has ground-breaking features like:
- It can hide that you are a WordPress user.
- It will help detect attacks and stop them automatically.
- It disables direct access to PHP files.
- It can rename plugin and theme folders.
- It allows the entry of a login page with a key or custom-made URL.
- It has a WordPress firewall that protects your website from SQL injections, CSRF, XSS, and brute force.
- It can protect your WordPress from unknown hackers or bots via a ‘trust network.’
- It allows you to block and permit visitors from specific counties.
- 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 can replace anything in the source code.
28000+ users use the Hide My WP plugin. It has 4.5 ratings proving its efficiency. Try it out yourself to see how good it works.
Summing It Up
We have learned that:
- Even if WordPress is a popular and secure CMS, it still has security vulnerabilities that allow outsiders to hack it.
- Once a hacker gains access to your WordPress, it’s within his power to do anything with it for his gain, eventually destroying your website.
- We have many free ways to secure WordPress websites by using Hide My WP Lite, using strong passwords, hiding source code, limiting login attempts, Two-factor authentication, hiding and disabling access to WordPress files.
- While we use many free ways to secure our websites, we cannot rest easy because the protection isn’t complete. Therefore, we must use premium WordPress security plugins like ‘Hide My WP’ that provide 24/7 protection with zero attacks.
Related article: 9 Fast and Easy WordPress Security Hacks you need to Implement Today