Keep Your WordPress Site Safe
WordPress is the most popular blogging and website platform available. It accounts for nearly 60% of CMS used by businesses today. That's saying a lot. So, it's a big problem when WordPress sites come under attack. Lately, WordPress sites have been the target for many hackers, and tons of WordPress users are still vulnerable.
If you're running a WordPress site, you'll quickly learn that hackers love WordPress. You've probably already received a ton of comments from spammers, seen what can happen if your site isn't backed up, and have fallen prey to an attack or two. What you might not know is how to stop your WordPress site from being a target. Here are some simple tips.
- Back it all up : I can't stress this enough. Your site may seem safe from harm, but, trust me, it's not. When your site does come under attack, you will be torn apart when all of that amazing data disappears. The only way to avoid this is to back up your site. How? This doesn't have to be hard at all.
There are a number of WordPress plugins (like BackupBuddy that will back up your entire site). Plugins like this one copy your site from start to finish and you can keep that copy store away safely. If an attack does happen, your site will be all backed up. - Be careful with comments : When it comes to WordPress, you have two comment options: allow all comments and manually approve comments, or use a comment filter plugin. I suggest the second option. Filters make life much easier when it comes to spam comments. This brings me to another point: you don't want to approve spam comments.
- Version Updates
A good news is that WordPress has enabled automatic version update on their software which ensures that your CMS is always up to date.
Most common attack on WordPress is Brute Force
Why Spam Comments Are Bad: Keep Your WordPress Site Safe
If your site is slow, that's a very bad thing. A slow site can easily happen when third-party spammers are using your site to send traffic back to their own site. This happens when you approve a comment that's attached to a shady link. Sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference too, so beware. If you simply install a spam filter, all of those bad comments will be discarded.
The other option is to disallow comments completely, but I don't recommend doing this. After all, a blog exists for the sole purpose of sharing information. If you don't let your readers share comments, what's the point of a blog? Building a WordPress site means being vulnerable, but you can put a stop to the vulnerability by making sure that your site is safe.
Got any additional WordPress security tips? Let me know below!
