Did you know that WordPress is by far, one of the most popular content management systems in the world, and it is due to this exact reason why it’s extremely important that you should know how to prevent someone from hacking WordPress.

As of now, there are currently 55% of websites that run on WordPress – and that’s a lot of websites. Do know that the tips stated here are not the only ways on how you can protect WordPress from hacking, but they are certainly some of the most important ones that you shouldn’t overlook.

Using strong passwords and management

Do you know why many WordPress websites are hacked? It’s because the hackers discover the credentials of the website, and which is known as ‘brute force attacks’. If, however, you use strong passwords on your WordPress website, then, the chances of the hackers getting to the credentials of your website become less significant.

That means you need to create difficult passwords – of course, there are multiple services and applications which asks for passwords, but it doesn’t mean that you will set the same password everywhere because of how scary it is to remember each and every password for all those services and applications. Setting the same password in all of the services and applications will only make it easy for hackers to get to your website.

Your best bet is to use a ‘password manager’ – they can store as well as encrypt passwords safely; and even though there are literally hundreds of password manager, the best one is ‘LastPass’ that all recommend.

If you are wondering what ‘LastPass’ is, then, you should do well to note that it is an app/extension that can create and remembers the passwords of all your services and applications so that you don’t have to, plus it will also notify you if any of your passwords are too weak.

Following the principle of ‘least privilege’

Do you know what’s the principle of ‘least privilege’ is?

It means that you should never delegate access to those users and developers that you don’t trust; if you still had to give access to them, you should make sure to restrict them. If possible, you should grant them the lowest privilege that is allowed for them to do their tasks.

And after everything is done, it is advised that you should remove their access at the earliest. That’s what is meant by the principle of ‘least privilege’.

Keeping all the WordPress plugins updated and secure

WordPress usually is very secure, and that’s because of its community of developers who frequently update the CMS. IF you end up installing way too many plugins for your WordPress site and that too, without knowing what each of those plugins does, then you are at risk of getting your WordPress site hacked.

Even though installing plugins to any WordPress site is a necessity, as they can help to alleviate the load of many tasks, and we are sure that it goes for you too; but the thing to remember is that if you have to install plugins, then, make sure as to what the plugin can do for your WordPress site before installing it.

Take note of the features and functions of the plugins, and only install it on your WordPress site after you made sure that it’s a right fit for your WordPress site.

Using WordPress Hardening Method

If you are fully familiar with how WordPress works, then, you can use hardening methods to protect your WordPress site against hackers.

There are various hardening methods that you can use to protect your WordPress site. Some of them include adding in additional allow or deny rules via your .htaccess file, protecting your wp-config file, restricting login URLs to specific IPs and such.

Preventing a WordPress hack with a website firewall

As of till now, more than 80% of CMSs were hacked and out of them, more than 50% accounted from only WordPress sites.

Do you know why this happens – this is mainly due to the reason that the users are not able to update their WordPress version and that happens mainly due to some glitches in either the themes or the plugins. In such cases, the best bet is to enable a WordPress firewall – also known as a ‘Web Application Firewall’ – that will virtually patch the site.

A ‘Web Application Firewall’ is basically a pass that goes through traffic that visits the site and thus filtering out the bad attempts, which includes exploits, hacking attempts, DoS, to name a few, while allowing the good ones to pass through.

So, you see, implementing the above five steps is a sure way of protecting your WordPress site against hackers. It would do you well, if when creating a WordPress site, you remember these basics. After all, prevention is better than cure.