How to Prevent a WordPress Site from Being Hacked

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WordPress holds the largest market share among web platforms worldwide. And, like Windows, hackers often target this platform. That doesn’t mean you should avoid using WordPress. Instead, you need to take the right precautions to secure your site.

Mangcoding has secured hundreds of WordPress websites and fixed many hacked sites for more than 5 years. Based on that experience, here are the most effective ways to protect your WordPress site.

The first step in protecting your site is choosing the right theme. Thousands of themes are available, but many are developed without strict supervision. Anyone can create and sell a theme, which makes quality vary greatly.

Site owners often select themes based on design or style while ignoring security and performance. Unfortunately, this decision can expose a site to risks. Commercial themes usually contain more features, which makes them heavier and more vulnerable to bugs. Hackers can buy these themes, study the source code, and exploit weaknesses to attack every site using the same theme.

What should you do?

• Avoid commercial themes if possible.

• Use a custom theme built by a trusted developer. Custom themes are lighter, safer, and often faster.

• If you use a commercial theme, check its reputation. Read reviews, look at download numbers, and make sure it receives regular updates.

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Updating WordPress and its plugins is one of the easiest yet most effective security measures. When you ignore updates, you leave doors open for hackers.

Some plugins may no longer receive updates from developers. Even worse, some might have been removed from the WordPress repository, leaving your site at risk without any warning.

What should you do?

• Regularly review all installed plugins.

• Replace outdated or abandoned plugins with alternatives that have strong support and frequent updates.

• Never rely on plugins that haven’t been updated in years.

What you need to do is replace plugins like this with better alternatives that have good support and always perform regular updates and maintenance.

Several security plugins can harden your site against threats. Two of the most popular are iThemes Security Pro and WordFence.

Installing one of these plugins significantly improves your site’s protection. For example, iThemes Security Pro provides:

• Protection against brute-force attacks.

• PHP execution blocking in upload, plugin, and theme folders.

• Strong password requirements for all users.

• The ability to disable XML-RPC and the WordPress REST API, which often serve as loopholes for hackers.

CloudFlare offers a free service that every WordPress site should use. It acts as a web firewall and filters attacks before they reach your server. The system updates continuously to block new threats.

Although paid plans provide additional features, the free version already adds strong protection. Because of that, using CloudFlare should be a key part of your WordPress security strategy.

Securing a WordPress site requires consistent action. By choosing safe themes, updating your core and plugins, using strong security plugins, and enabling CloudFlare, you can drastically reduce the chances of being hacked.

If you need help with a hacked site, Mangcoding can assist. We have a team that is experienced and responsive in security matters and is ready to help.

That’s the article on How to Prevent a WordPress Site from Being Hacked that Mangcoding shared. We hope this article is useful and provides new knowledge. If you have any constructive feedback or suggestions, please comment or send an Email through Mangcoding’s social media.

Source :   NDIC.com