Top 30 WordPress Security Best Practices for WordPress Sites

If you have a WordPress site or eCommerce store, then you should take WordPress security very seriously. 

Security is vital for business, especially for online businesses and companies. 

With your entire business or organization being online, one security issue can ruin your reputation, cost you a lot of money, or bring your business to the ground.

If you are serious about your WordPress site, paying close attention to WordPress security best practices should be your top priority. 

There are many complaints about WordPress security, and you can only avoid being a victim by knowing some of these WordPress security issues and how to prevent them. 

This guide will expose you to everything you need to know about WordPress security issues and provide you with tips to protect your WordPress site against malware and hackers.

What Is WordPress Security?

WordPress security is a crucial aspect of maintaining your site’s integrity. 

It may seem like an overwhelming task to secure and protect all the files on your website, but by following these few tips, you can make sure that the information stored in them doesn’t get leaked out into cyberspace.

WordPress is known for its accessibility and ease of use. Nevertheless, the popularity of this content management system has made it highly attractive to spammers and hackers. 

By default, the WordPress core software is highly secure. Hundreds of developers audit the software regularly. 

However, the absolute security of the CMS is not dependent on the software alone. The security of the platform also depends on the site owners and operators.

WordPress security is all about reducing risk, not eliminating risk, as that is almost impossible.

Importance of Proper WordPress Security Practices

Security is essential to every WordPress site owner, whether small or large. If your website gets hacked, you could lose a lot of money and damage your business’s reputation. 

Hackers can get away with vital information such as payment details and passwords. Some site owners even end up paying ransomware to cybercriminals just to regain access to their site.

To prevent all these from happening, you need to follow proper WordPress security practices. If you run a business or company website built on WordPress, you need to pay close attention to your WordPress security. 

You should protect your website, and online store the way business owners protect their brick and mortar stores and buildings. Failing to follow proper WordPress security practices will cost you a lot.

WordPress Security Issues and Statistics

The WordPress platform is a popular hacking target for many hackers.

WordPress is the most used content management system in the world. It powers about 60 percent of all CMS websites and 40 percent of all websites on the internet. 

According to available data, about 30,000 out of 42,000 identified WordPress sites have susceptibilities that hackers can exploit.

Furthermore, eight percent of WordPress websites are hacked because of weak passwords. 

And data from WP White Security also shows that about 31 percent of Alexa’s top one million sites use outdated WordPress version 3.6, making them highly susceptible to hacks. 

Hence, this is why updating your WordPress to the latest version is very important.

Statistics also show that WordPress plugins account for 52 percent of WordPress susceptibilities. 

As a result, you should verify any plugin you want to install on your WordPress site. You should make sure the plugin is from a reliable developer or company.

WordPress Security Fundamentals

The last thing you want is your WordPress site to be infected with malware.

Thankfully, you can take many steps to keep your WordPress site safe, secure, and protected. 

As a business owner, you must prioritize the safety of your WordPress site because of your customers, reputation, and more. 

Some basic WordPress security fundamentals can help to make your WordPress site more secure.

Implementing these fundamentals is very important, as they will play a vital role in the safety of your website. 

Listed below are some of the essential WordPress security fundamentals.

1. Keep up with WordPress updates

One of the best ways to remain protected and secure is to keep up with updates when using any software. 

WordPress is the most popular CMS (Content Management System) globally, and the company updates and maintains the system regularly.

WordPress installs some minor updates automatically. However, whenever there is a significant update, site owners need to run the update manually.

There are many reasons why WordPress updates its software regularly. One of the significant reasons is security. WordPress updates its system regularly to provide its users with tight and improved security.

The updates on this platform also extend to the themes and plugins you use. WordPress has more than 50,000 plugins in its plugin directory from different developers and companies. 

And the platform also has thousands of themes. The developers of these plugins and themes usually release updates for their products regularly.

When updating your WordPress site, you must update your themes and plugins as well.

These updates do more than enhance the look and feel of your site, plugins, and themes. They are crucial for the stability and security of your site. 

Hence, you should always keep your WordPress core, theme, and plugins up to date.

2. Secure passwords and user permissions

Weak passwords are one of the ways through which hackers get into most WordPress sites. 

After ensuring your WordPress cores, theme, and plugins are up to date, your next shot at keeping your site safe to use robust passwords. With stronger passwords, you will make things a lot difficult for hackers.

It would be best if you use highly secure passwords that are unique to your WordPress site. 

And this includes your admin area, database, FTP accounts, custom email addresses, WordPress hosting account, and more. 

One of the primary reasons why many people do not like using complex passwords is that they find it difficult to remember the password. 

Fortunately, you no longer have to worry about remembering passwords anymore.  

With a password manager, you can generate robust and secure passwords. The password manager will also keep the password you used securely, making it easily accessible whenever you need it. 

Furthermore, you should use a password that consists of alphabets, numbers, special characters, and upper case.

You can also reduce the chances of being hacked through this means by limiting access to your WordPress admin account.

3. Your web hosting provider plays a crucial role for WordPress security

Your WordPress site’s security depends on several things, and one of them is your web hosting provider. 

In fact, your hosting provider plays the most crucial role in the security and protection of your site. 

So this is why you must use an excellent shared hosting provider. Here at DailyRazor, we go the extra mile to ensure our hosting infrastructure is secure and available when you need it.

And all security protocols extend to protect your WordPress site against common security issues and threats.

We constantly check our networks for suspicious activities. And we also have tools that effectively prevent large-scale DDOS attacks. 

Furthermore, we put mechanisms in place to ensure your data is safe in the event of a significant accident. 

To prevent cybercriminals from leveraging known security susceptibilities in older versions of the software, hardware, and PHP versions, we often strive to implement release updates regularly.

4. Use trusted plugin and theme developers

Using plugins and themes from trusted and reliable developers is another vital WordPress security fundamental.

No WordPress website is complete without plugins and themes. You cannot run a fully functional WordPress site without installing plugins and themes. 

There are thousands of themes and plugins for you to choose from when setting up your WordPress site. These themes and plugins are from different companies and developers.

Unfortunately, not all these themes and plugins are secure. When installing plugins and themes on your WordPress site, you want to make sure they are from a highly reputable developer or company. 

Some developers will create plugins and leave them without releasing regular updates to make them more secure. So this creates room for hackers to find backdoors to people’s sites with ease.

Hence, the trustworthiness and reliability developer of the theme or plugin you use on your WordPress site is critical, as it plays a vital role in the security of your site. 

You should only install themes and plugins from popular and reliable developers and companies.

Top 30 WordPress Security Best Practices

In this section, we will walk you through some WordPress security best practices that can help you enhance the security of your WordPress site.

We will educate you on some fundamental security actionable steps and techniques to secure your site and reduce the chance of a compromise.

1. Update PHP to the latest version for improved WordPress security

One of the best WordPress security practices is to keep your PHP updated. It is recommended you update your PHP to the latest version continually. 

PHP is the fundamental core of WordPress websites, so it is crucial to use the latest version.

You can expect a two-year gap from the previous major release for PHP to release a new major version of its popular programming language.

Before any significant release, PHP release minor updates to fix security issues and bugs. 

Once you fail to update your PHP regularly, you will leave your site to vulnerability. Your site will be easy to break, as it will have backdoors.

The current version of PHP is version 8.0, and only 0.2 percent of users are using it at the time of this article’s publication. 

According to available data, 26.1 percent are currently using version 7.4, while 29.2 are still using version 7.3.

2. Remove default WP-Admin “admin” user

By default, the username of the WordPress administrator is “admin.” As you know, the login details of your WP account consist of a username and password. 

With “admin” being the username, hackers find it easier to break into sites. 

Fortunately, WordPress now allows you to remove the default username and change it whatever you want.

During the installation of WordPress, you can elect to set a new custom username. 

Nevertheless, some one-click WP installers still set “admin” as the default username for the admin section. 

If that is your case, you should seriously create a new admin (after installation) and delete the default admin user.

By default, you cannot change the WordPress admin username. However, there are a few ways you can do that. 

Some of the ways you can do that include updating your username from phpMyAdmin, using the Username Changer plugin, or creating a new admin account and deleting the old one.

3. Enable Two-Factor (2FA) or Multiple Factor Authentication (MFA) for robust WordPress security

One of the best ways to protect your WordPress site from being hacked is to use two-factor authentication. 

Introducing this module of WordPress security will help to keep your site safe and protected. 

With this module, the user will provide login credentials for two different components. The owner of the site will be the one to decide what those components will be.

It can be a secret code, secret question, set of characters, or the top-rated Google Authentication app. 

If you set it to work with the Google Authentication app, you will need to provide the password displayed in the app (which expires every 30 seconds) before you can log in.

Implementing this means the only person that can log into the admin account is the person with the phone. 

With just a few clicks, you can use the Google Authenticator plugin to achieve this. You can also use the Two Factor Authentication plugin to activate this function.

4. Secure and protect WordPress’s wp-config.php file

The wp-config.php file is the single most vital file in the root directory of your WordPress site. 

This file contains essential information about your WP installation, which is why you must protect and secure it.

Indeed, securing this file means that you are protecting your WordPress site core. 

When this file is well protected and secured, it will be almost impossible for a hacker to break into your site. 

Interestingly, it is effortless to protect this file. To protect and secure it, all you have to do is move the file to another root directory higher than the previous one.

Fortunately, you do not have to worry about how the server will access it when you move it. 

The config file settings are the number one priority in the latest WP architecture. Hence, the system will always locate it even when you store it in another root directory.

5. Disable (disallow) file editing to minimize WordPress security issues

It would help if you also considered disabling file editing, as this could protect and secure your site. 

With admin access, any user can access your WP dashboard and modify files that are part of your WP installation. So this means any user with admin access can edit theme and plugin files. 

By disabling file editing, anyone with admin access cannot modify or edit any file.

Therefore, even if hackers gain access to your WP dashboard, they will not be able to modify any file. 

Again, disabling file editing is also very easy. To disallow file editing, add the following line of code to the bottom of your wp-config.php file.

define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true);

6. Log idle users off automatically

It is an excellent practice always to log off any website or platform once you are done with it. The same thing applies to WordPress accounts. 

A user leaving the admin area of your WP site open can result in a severe WordPress security issue. With this, anyone that gains access to the system can alter or pull out information from the site.

To avoid that from happening, you should automatically make sure that your WP website logs out idle users. The system should log them off after a specific period. 

With plugins such as the BulletProof Security plugin, you can set a specific time limit for idle users. 

Once the time elapses, the system will log the user out automatically. Doing this will help to reduce the chances of being hacked or your files altered.

7. Disable directory browsing via .HTACCESS

Creating a new directory as part of your WP site and not adding an index.html file will give your visitors a complete directory listing of all the files in that directory. 

For instance, when you create a new directory named “contact,” you can see all the files in that directory by going to https://www.mywebsite.com/contact/ in your browser. And you will not need a password or any permission to access the files.

To prevent this from happening, you need to disable directory browsing through .HTACCESS. 

Again, this process is straightforward; all you need to do is add this line of code:

Options All –Indexes

to your .htaccess file. With this, no one will gain access to such files and find a backdoor to your WordPress site.

8. Regular WordPress backup

It is almost impossible for a WordPress website to be 100 percent secure. Regardless of how secure your WP site is, there will always be room for improvements. 

Hence, this is why it is essential to have a backup of your website somewhere safe. When you backup your site, you will be able to restore it with ease when something goes wrong.

Well, backing up your site is essential, but backing it up regularly is more important. 

With regular updates, you will have a shorter restore point to bring back your store. You will be able to get your site back to its working state in the event of a breach or error.

Fortunately, there are many great WordPress plugins that you can use to back up your site automatically. With automatic backups, you do not need to go through the stress of backing up your site manually. 

Some of these WordPress backup tools are available free of charge, while you have to pay for some of the time. 

Here are some of the best WordPress backup solutions for your WordPress site:

1. VaultPress

VaultPress is one of the most powerful backup and security solutions for WordPress sites. 

This plugin does more than just backing up your site automatically; but it also provides a high level of security for your site. 

VaultPress’s developers created the plugin to protect you from the most severe and common WordPress security issues and threats such as hackers, host failure, user error, viruses, malware, and exploits.

This plugin also helps with site migration, backup and restores, automated file repair, file scanning, and spam defense. 

It is designed to protect both you and your visitors. But it’s free; the starting price is $4.77 per month when paid annually.

2. UpdraftPlus

UpdraftPlus is one of the most trusted backup plugins for WordPress. This plugin does an impressive job when it comes to backing, restoring, and cloning your WordPress website. 

With this tool, your chances of experiencing dodgy updates, server crashes, hacking, and simple user errors that usually ruin WP websites will reduce significantly. 

UpdraftPlus is easy to use, highly trusted, and comprehensive. It also allows you to schedule backups and restores your site whenever you want. 

It has a freemium and premium version. The starting price for the premium version is $42.00 per year.

3. BlogVault

BlogVault is another highly reliable WordPress backup plugin. More than 400,000 WordPress websites trust and are using this plugin. It is an all-in-one solution, as it offers complete website management.

Notably, BlogVault is the first WP plugin to support multisite backup. Its quick and effective backup process is near 100% successful.

Similarly, backup restoration is fast, along with flawless site migration and multisite management processes.

BlogVault comes with a free 7-day trial period, which does not require a credit card.

9. Block image hotlinking to prevent WordPress security issues

Hotlinking is when someone takes an image from your site and post it on their own site. 

When this happens, the person uses your server bandwidth, which will reduce your site’s loading speed. This practice can also create a backdoor to your site.

In addition to reducing the speed of your site, this can also result in high server costs.

To prevent this from happening, you should block image hotlinking on your WordPress site. 

There are several means through which you can block image hotlinking. However, the simple means is to use a plugin. One of the best plugins for this job is the All-in-One WP Security and Firewall.

10. Secure WordPress with SSL (HTTPS)

One of the best ways to secure the admin panel is to implement a Secure Socket Layer (SSL). 

SSL makes sure that data transferred between the server and the user’s browser are secure, making it difficult for a hacker to break in. 

If you’ve not secured your WordPress site with SSL, you need to do so as quickly as possible.

If your hosting company does not provide a free SSL certificate, you might need to buy one from a third-party company. 

In addition to making your site more secure, SSL will also affect the Google ranking of your site. 

Websites with SSL certificates rank higher than sites without any on Google.

11. Monitor and control comments

Another great way of protecting your site is by monitoring and controlling comments. WordPress is notorious for prevalent spammy comments. 

As such, you need to monitor and review comments before letting them through to your site. 

You can also decide to add series of conditions to block spam or disable comments entirely. 

You can carry this out manually or use a third-party plugin such as Askimet for the job.

12. Implement and protect against DDoS attacks

DDoS attacks are pretty common, and some WordPress sites are highly susceptible to them. 

This attack is usually against your server’s bandwidth, and it involves hackers using series of programs to overload the server. 

However, such attacks cannot destroy your site. Instead, it is going to cost you downtime for an extended period. Your site will be down until you mitigate the attack.

If you do not want to be a victim of this, you should implement and protect against DDoS attacks. 

Once again, with the right WordPress plugin, you can protect your site against DDoS attacks. 

Some of the most reliable WordPress plugins that you can use to achieve this include Cloudflare and Sucuri. 

However, you will have to subscribe to their premium plan to achieve this.

13. Implement Web Application Firewall (WAF)

By implementing a web application firewall, you will secure your website and be confident in its security measures. 

Your website’s framework policy helps to block malicious traffic before getting to your site. 

There are two types of web application firewalls:

1. Application Level Firewall: This type of WAF scrutinize traffic when it gets to your server but before most of the WP scripts load.
2. DNS Level Website Firewall: This type of WAF redirects the traffic to your site through their cloud proxy servers. It examines all the traffic and only allows the genuine ones to pass. This type of WAF is more efficient than the previous one.

You can implement a web application firewall with the best WordPress plugins for firewall protection. Our top recommendation is Sucuri.

14. Update your themes frequently

Another excellent WordPress security practice is updating your themes regularly. 

As we mentioned earlier, always make sure you install only themes from reputable and reliable developers; this is because they release frequent updates for security and stability. 

Whenever they discover any possible backdoor in their themes, they will fix it and send it as an update. So this is why it is essential to update your themes frequently.

15. Update your plugins frequently

Plugins are one of the effective means through which hackers can break into a site. WordPress has thousands of plugins in its plugin directory. 

Some of them are from reliable developers, while some have been known to cause havoc on some websites. 

Again, all the plugins on your site should be from reliable developers.

Updating your plugins frequently is one of the best ways to keep your site safe. Some plugins can come with bugs that will expose your site to security risks. 

In addition to updating your plugins, you should also audit them regularly. You should assess the security of your plugin by reviewing some vital indicators such as:

• What is the installation count of the plugin; does it have a large install base?
• Are the developers of the plugin still supporting it and releasing new updates?
• Does the plugin have many user reviews?
• Did the developer or company include a contact form or physical address?
• Did the developer list a privacy policy or terms of service?

16. Implement reCAPTCHA across all logins & forms for improved WordPress security

Implementing reCAPTCHA across all forms and logins on your WordPress site is another very effective way of protecting your website. 

In all your web forms and login pages, you should implement reCAPTCHA. CAPTCHA means Completely Automated Public Turin Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

Many hacks today are executed by automated online bots. With the implementation of CAPTCHA in your forms and login page, you will be able to prevent these bots from accessing your WP site. 

It will also be impossible for them to submit unwanted spam via forms.

Adding CAPTCHA to your site is also simple and easy, as all you need is the right plugin. The best WordPress plugin for this action includes Really Simple Captcha and Captcha.

17. Limit access to WordPress login page

You should also limit access to your WP login page, which will help reduce your site’s susceptibility. 

Limit the access to only authorized IP; this will provide your site with better security by preventing unauthorized entries. 

Fortunately, there are many effective plugins out there that you can use to do this.

Cloud-based web application firewalls such as Sucuri Firewall can help you limit access to your WordPress login page through your dashboard. 

You can do this without altering any code or writing a new line of code. You do not even need to change anything in the .htaccess files. So this means only authorized IP will have access to your login page.

18. Enable WordPress lockdown feature & ban users

To prevent brute force attempts on your site, you should enable the WordPress lockdown feature and ban users. 

This feature will lock out failed login attempts and prevent brute force attempts. If someone tries to hack your site by continuously using the wrong passwords, your website will be locked automatically. You will even receive a notification of the unauthorized activity.

To enable this feature on your WordPress dashboard, you need the right plugin. One of the best WordPress plugins for this task is iThemes Security. 

With this plugin, you can enable the lockdown feature and ban users on your WordPress site after several failed login attempts. 

This plugin also comes with many other helpful security features to protect your website. After the number of specified attempts, the plugin will ban the IP address of the user automatically.

19. Use email address instead of usernames for logins

Using an email address instead of a username for your login is another important change you need to make to enhance the security of your WordPress site and prevent WordPress security issues. 

Out of the box, the login pattern for WordPress is username and password. However, it is much safer and secure to use an email address in the place of a username.

There are many reasons why email addresses are safer than usernames. One of those reasons is that it is straightforward to predict usernames but not email addresses. 

Consequently, WordPress user accounts created with different email addresses are more challenging to predict.

20. Rename WP-Admin login URL

Renaming or changing the URL of your WordPress admin page is another excellent way of protecting your site from hackers. 

By default, you can access the WP-admin login page through wp-admin on the main URL of the website or through wp-login.php. 

These access roots are widespread, making it easy for hackers to force their way into your WordPress install.

When they access this page, they will try to log in with their Guess Work Database (GWDb), which are guessed passwords and usernames. 

To effectively deny them access to the admin login URL, you need to rename it. 

After renaming it, no unauthorized person can access the login page. The only entity that can access it is one with the exact URL. 

With WPS Hide Login, you can change your WP-Admin Login URL with ease. This plugin also allows you to use whatever you want as the new URL. It is also effortless to use.

21. Frequently scan for malware & backdoors vulnerabilities

Securing your WordPress website is a lot of work. However, it is worth the effort, as you stand to lose a lot if anything goes wrong.  

With the best WordPress security plugin, you do not have to worry about manually checking your website for malware and vulnerabilities. 

Nevertheless, if you notice a considerable decline in your search rankings or site traffic, then something might be wrong somewhere.

At this point, you should run a manual scan. You can use your WP security plugin to scan your site manually for malware and backdoors vulnerabilities. 

However, some of these WordPress security scanners cannot get rid of malware or fix a hacked site after scanning your site, which means you have to look for another means to do that.

22. Change the prefix to your WordPress database table name

Hackers can break into some WordPress sites because of most of the default settings they use. 

These hackers have found their way around these default settings, which is why changing some of these default settings is essential. 

One of the default settings you need to change to increase the security of your WordPress site is the wp­_ that WordPress uses as a prefix for all the tables in its database.

With this default prefix, hackers will not have a hard time guessing what the name of your table is. 

However, changing this default database prefix requires some coding skills. You should not attempt it if you are not confident in your coding skill, as you can break your website if you do not do it properly.

23. Constantly monitor WordPress audit logs

Another helpful WordPress security practice is monitoring your WordPress audit logs. 

Monitoring your WordPress audit logs is very important for those managing a multi-author WordPress site. 

Such sites usually have contributors and writers who change passwords and other things. 

However, there are some things that they should not change, such as widgets, themes, plugins settings, and more. Only the admin should be responsible for such changes.

By monitoring your audit logs, you will ensure that your contributors are not trying to make any changes to your website without your permission. 

You can monitor your WordPress audit logs using a plugin like WP Security Audit Log. 

This plugin will show you all the activities on your site. It will also provide you with reports and email notifications.

24. Disable WordPress’s XML-RPC

To help connect your website with mobile and web applications, WordPress 3.5 comes with XML-RPC enabled out of the box. 

WordPress’s XML-RPC is very powerful, and it can strengthen brute-force attacks significantly. 

For instance, if someone wants to hack your site by trying 400 different login credentials, they would need to try the process 400 different times, and your lockdown mechanism will be activated and block the user’s IP.

However, with XML-RPC enabled, the hacker can try to break in with thousands of login credentials using the system.multicall function. 

The hacker might be able to get through with about 40 to 50 attempts. As such, you should disable this feature. 

The best way to disable WordPress XML-RPC is with .htaccess. To disable XML-RPC, paste the code below in your .htaccess file.

# Block WordPress xmlrpc.php requests
<Files xmlrpc.php>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 123.123.123.123
</Files>

25. Hide the WordPress version number

The WordPress version you are using is straightforward to spot. You can find it at the source view of your website and the bottom right corner of your WordPress dashboard. 

We recommend hiding your WordPress version number to prevent hackers from building a custom attack for your site.

You can use all the WordPress security plugins we mentioned above to hide your WordPress version number. 

However, you can also remove the version number manually by adding the following code to your functions.php file.

function wpbeginner_remove_version() {
return '';
}
add_filter('the_generator', 'wpbeginner_remove_version');

26. Disallow PHP file execution

Disallowing the execution of PHP files on your site is one of the best ways of increasing the strength of your site’s security. 

There are some directories where PHP file execution is not necessary, like the /wp-content/uploads/directory, so disabling it is the right thing to do.

To disallow PHP file execution in such directories, you have to save the following function in a text editor.

<Files *.php>
deny from all
</Files>

Note: when saving it, the extension of the Notepad file should be .htaccess.

After saving it, you can use an FTP client to upload it to the directory where PHP file execution is not needed.

27. Remove unused & defunct WordPress plugins & themes

It is always a good practice to limit the number of WordPress plugins and themes on your site. So it would be best if you only use plugins that are very important and useful at all times. 

Installing too many plugins on your site will affect your site’s performance and increase the chances of a compromise.

As such, you should remove or uninstall any plugin that is not useful on your WordPress site. 

Notably, disabling unused plugins is not advisable, as they are still in the system and can be a backdoor vulnerability. 

You should altogether remove themes and plugins you are not using, which will help enhance your WordPress security and reduce your chances of being hacked. 

In fact, the recommended number of WordPress plugins to use on your site is 20. 

Anything over that range will affect and slow down your site, which is another reason to eliminate unused and defund themes and plugins on your WordPress site.

28. Update WordPress security keys

You can also improve the security of your WordPress site by updating your security keys. 

These security keys are random variables that enhance the encryption of data stored in the user’s cookies. 

Since WordPress version 2.7 was released, there have been four different keys:

1. AUTH_Key
2. LOGGED_IN_KEY
3. SECURE_AUTH_KEY
4. NONCE_KEY

When you install WordPress, the system generates these WordPress security keys automatically for you. 

Nevertheless, if you bought the website from someone or your site has gone through series of migrations, then you might need to create new WordPress security keys. 

If the system generated yours randomly for you, you need to make it a habit to update it.

29. Disable or disallow script injections

Script injections are one of the most common means through which hackers find their way into WordPress sites. 

Script injection is the injection or insertion of script code through data transmitted from a site. 

If an exploited script is injected into a site correctly and successfully, the hacker can walk away with vital information from the database. They can even delete, add, or modify data on the database.

With this, hackers will have access to all the actions associated with the database, a severe WordPress security issue. 

To prevent this from happening, you should disable or disallow script injections. 

You can also prevent script injections by regularly scanning your site, updating your themes, plugins, and WordPress core, using only reliable plugins and themes, making backups, using firewalls, and more.

30. Perform regular security audit to detect vulnerabilities

If you’re not currently performing a regular security audit on your WordPress site, then you need to start now.

Doing this is another simple but highly effective practice that can keep your site safe and secure. 

Sometimes your site might have some vulnerabilities and backdoors that hackers can exploit. 

The fact that hackers haven’t gotten your WordPress site does not mean it is wholly secure or has no vulnerability. 

In order not to be taken unaware, you should perform a security audit to detect vulnerabilities regularly.

You do not need to wait for your WordPress security plugin to flag any issues before auditing your website. 

It would be best if you did it regularly and then resolve any issues when you find one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Now, let’s look at some of the common questions we get from WordPress site operators regarding their WordPress security.

WordPress Security – Wrapping Up

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform in use today, but it’s also one of the easiest to hack. 

People who have websites on the WordPress platform should know that it’s essential to keep their sites up-to-date with security patches and plugins. 

The only way to protect your site from a security breach is by taking several (if not all) of the precautions outlined above.

By adhering to the WordPress security practices in this guide, you will be able to fix any vulnerability in your site and protect it from hackers.