Why WordPress Website Security is Important?

When it comes to WordPress, security plays a very important role. If you don’t take proper steps to ensure the security of WordPress, you will end up in big trouble. We will see why you need to maintain the security of your WordPress website. For that, we will be seeing some of the factors that are affecting security. This will give you an exact idea of why you need to secure your website.

We will start with the most basic things and then we will head over to the advanced reasons on why you need to maintain the security of the website. In this way, you will have a clear idea about WordPress security.

The Popularity of WordPress

We will start with the most basic reason why WordPress website security is important. You might have seen that there are a lot of WordPress websites on the internet. There are over 39% of total websites running WordPress.

Can you imagine this? It means that if you consider any 10 websites, 4 of them might be using WordPress. Therefore, you can surely imagine how popular WordPress is.

What does this imply? This simply means that there are tons of websites using WordPress as their CMS. Now, if you are thinking about how can this be related to the security of the website then here are the reasons.

When there is a huge popularity of a CMS or script, there are good chances that the attackers or the hackers might also be keeping an eye on the script, right? There are lots of attacks happening on the internet on daily basis. Therefore, hackers might want to hack WordPress websites too.

As a result, there is constantly scanning of the websites for vulnerability. When they find one, what will happen?

They will not only get access to one particular website but they will get access to almost all the websites that are using WordPress. The simple reason here is because the CMS or the script is the same.

If they find a vulnerability in WordPress code, they will surely get access to all the websites. As a result, all the people who are using WordPress will be at risk. Therefore, you will end up in big trouble.

This is the first big reason why you need to maintain the security of the website. However, this is not a big deal. If something like this happens, WordPress will roll an update. As a result, everyone who updates the website will be safe.

Plugins and Themes

The next thing that will bring a security risk to WordPress is all the extra functionalities you have added. You surely might not be using WordPress directly, right? You will be using various plugins that will allow you to increase the functionality of the website. In the same way, you will need a theme if you are using a WordPress website.

When you first get started, you will be given the default theme that you can use. The default theme is also a type of theme.

So, the problem lies here. All these are the extra codes and are not directly related to WordPress. For the same reason, you might be seeing that there are extra updates required for these things.

What if one of these things is affected? In simpler words, what if the attacker finds the vulnerability in one of the themes or plugins?

If the developer of the plugin or theme is active, they will surely roll an update just like WordPress. When you update the theme or plugin, you are safe and your website won’t be at risk. What if the developer isn’t active and doesn’t roll an update? You will end up in huge trouble, right? You surely don’t want the attacker to find about your website.

Therefore, you will have to make sure that the plugins and the themes you are using are safe. You can always look for the plugins and themes that are from reputed developers and are regularly updated. In this way, you can be updated with it. In case, there is a vulnerability, you can easily recover it by simply updating your plugin.

It also shows that updating themes, plugins, and WordPress is extremely important if you want to stay secure.

WordPress is Safe but not Too Safe – Website Security

WordPress is secure enough to make sure that no one with average knowledge can hack into your website security. However, if the person has a bit of experience in attacking and hacking, at the same time, and you are not taking proper steps to ensure security, you will end up in big trouble.

There are various plugins available on the WordPress directory that will help you to stay secure. Most of them have a free version available. Some of the notable plugins that you can surely check out include Sucuri, Wordfence, iTheme security, etc. You can surely check out them in the official plugin directory.

When you go there, you will find all the plugins. You can simply install them and it will take you to the configuration page. Once you configure them, you will keep your website secure.

In the same way, there is a plugin called organizer. This will limit the login attempts. When the person will enter the incorrect password thrice or more, their IP will be blocked for a while.

This is not just one plugin. Many similar plugins can help you with the security of your website. You can surely use all of them to ensure that your website is secure enough/. You can also hide the fact that you are using WordPress as well as you can change the login URL of your website.

Now, if you are thinking about why you need to do this, then here are some of the reasons why you need to change the login page of your website as well as you can hide the fact that you are using WordPress. All these will play a role in the security of your website. Let’s learn more about it.

Open Source might put it on Risk – WordPress Website Security

WordPress is open source as well as it’s free to use and download. Does this mean that it’s not secure? Of course, no. Open-source software is great. You can surely use it for the best software and better security. However, there are certain cons that you need to keep in mind.

When you are using any open source software or CMS, you will have to understand that all the things can be downloaded by any person who knows about it. If you talk about WordPress, anyone can install it on their server or localhost.

Now, if you are thinking about how can this pose a risk to your website then here are the reasons.

You need to understand that all the people who have used WordPress know about the default login page URL. Everyone knows that when they add /admin or /wp-admin, it will open the admin page. In the same way, the username is also easy to get.

Therefore, anyone can try to attack your website if they are smart enough. they already have the login page URL as well as they have the username. They will just have to guess the password. Therefore, you will have to add some security there.

Don’t use the same username that comes default. Everyone knows that the default username is “admin”. So, try to change it. Also, the password should not be easily guessable. You can use hard-to-guess passwords. In this way, you will get the best usage of all the things.

Now, this was just for the website. There are many more things that you need to see. As they have the complete code, they will have better knowledge about the code. Therefore, take proper precautions for your WordPress website Security.

Factors Responsible for WordPress Website Security

Now, if you see the entire thing, many factors play a very important role here. We will see more about it here.

Let’s see the complete list of the factors that are affecting the environment.

• WordPress itself
• Theme and plugins
• API and third-party apps you are using
• Other users
• Hosting
• SSL certificate

These are some of the things that can affect the WordPress website. Therefore, you will have to make sure that you are taking proper steps to ensure everything is safe.

What if you get Hacked?

Now, let’s talk about what happens when you get hacked. Till now, we have seen various reasons why you need to take the security from a technical point of view. We will now see why you need to take the steps to secure your website.

Data at Risk

Your website stores a lot of data. It’s your website’s front-end data as well as your information. If you are using woo commerce, it will also have sensitive data such as user information, order details, address, etc. You are putting everyone at risk if you use any of these things. Therefore, you will have to make sure that you are taking all the measures to safeguard your website and not putting everyone at risk.

It’s not just your data that is at risk. You are also putting your customer’s data at risk. Therefore, you will have to keep this in mind and then take all the steps to ensure to WordPress website security.

Reputation

If your website is hacked, the reputation is all gone. People will know about your website being hacked and some of them might not trust the website anymore. If you are big enough and your competitors are waiting for your fall, they might take the advantage of this situation. You might also lose revenue. This brings us to the next point.

It will cost you big

When your website gets hacked, you will have to get it back. It’s not just about removing the page or the thing that has hacked the website. Instead, you will have to clean your website. Hackers will surely have entered some of the malicious code on the website that will harm your website. You will have to clean that and it will cost you more.

Further, if you don’t know about being hacked, you will surely lose the revenue of that particular day or the number of hours when your website was hacked. So, either way, it will cost you more.

Restoring the Backup

At times, the hacked code is dangerous enough that you will either have to hire experts to clean it or you will have to restore the backup. If you restore the backup, it will lose some of the data. Even if you take daily backups, there are good chances that your data will be gone. In this way, you will lose a lot of data if such circumstances arrive.

Customer Retention and Fear

When the website is hacked, it will surely cause fear among the users. They will not open the website and there are good chances that they might even delete the account to protect their personal information from getting hacked. Therefore, they will take the steps and delete it. This will cause you loss of customers.

Google Blacklist

If your website keeps getting hacked, Google will simply blacklist your website. They surely want to protect their users. Google will also show the “This website is hacked” sign when someone searches your website. Even if you don’t clean your website, Google will display the same text. Therefore, you will have to clean your website.

Final Words about importance of WordPress Website Security

To conclude, these are some of the reasons why you need to protect your website. You can surely get custom security here. This is because each website might be using a different set of plugins and a different hosting. You will never know which plugin is at risk. Therefore, you can either get a plugin that will protect you from all the vulnerabilities. On the other hand, if you have a risky business, you can surely use a better alternative and get the management service that will help you with the entire procedure. You can surely try all of them and get the best out of them.