According to Wordfence, nearly 90,978 WordPress attacks are happening per minute.
If you have a website on WordPress, you need to be concerned about the security status of your site.
In this article, we are going to see why WordPress site gets hacked easily, and what steps you can take to make your site secure.
Reasons why WordPress site gets hacked:
There are many ways to hack WordPress site, but here are the major reasons:
- Using Weak Passwords
- Insecure Web Hosting
- Not Updating WordPress
- Not Updating Plugins or Theme
- Nulled Theme or Plugins
- WordPress Admin Directory
- Securing Wp-Config
- Disable File Editing
- Using wp-admin
#1 Using Weak Passwords
If you use a weak password for your site, then your website can be hacked easily by Brute Force Attack or Dictionary Attack.
In these attacks, hackers try various combinations and permutations of words and characters to log in. It works on automation, and finally, spit out the Username and Password if the proper time and resources (GPU Servers) are given.
The more complex the password, the longer it will be to find it by Brute Force or Dictionary attack.
These are two passwords:
Which one do you think to have more permutations and combinations?
The second one, of course.
The purpose of Strong password is not to fight against these attacks, but to buy time. So your security can sense that someone is attacking your WordPress Site and alert you.
If your Hosting is actively defending the Hacking attacks, they will block the IP of the network before the automation guess the correct password.
You must also take precautions yourself.
So use a strong and unique password for each account.
- Hosting Account
- WordPress Login
- Admin Directory Login
- FTP Login
- Emails Logins
Various plugins are available that can block the IP of the network if there are many wrong attempts of logins. WP-Limit Login limits the number of failed login attempts.
Learn to secure WordPress login page.
#2 Insecure Web Hosting
Hosting plays a critical role in WordPress Website Security.
After all the measures and precautions taken, your web hosting is the foundation of your WordPress site. The base must be robust and responsive to support the site.
A useful Web hosting service:
- Do Security Scans regularly
- Keep the PHP updated
- Make Backups of sites consistently
- Keep an eye on Hacking Attacks
- Use Secure Servers
- Help users to recover after Hacking event
- 24x7x365 Available to help
It does not matter if the business is small or large, having quality WordPress hosting will always benefit you.
ServerGuy proactively monitors the client’s site for any unusual activities and protect the site from any hacking attempt. We are partner with world-class WAF providers such as Sucuri, Cloudflare and Astra.
#3 Not Updating WordPress
WordPress is an open-source CMS. That means any developer could read the WordPress coding, and find the vulnerabilities.
WordPress team find the security issues and fixes them. Also, WordPress users report it to the team, as the WordPress community is large and active. After fixing the bugs, team release the update.
If you do not update to latest version of WordPress, you will keep using the outdated WordPress version, of whom, the bugs are known.
Hence, making it easier for hackers to attack your site.
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#4 Not Updating Plugins or Theme
Plugins are the favourite way of Hackers.
You should always install the Plugins from reputable publishers. And you must keep them updated.
The developers of themes and plugins consistently work to make their product secure and safe. Whenever they find any vulnerability or insecure code, they patch it up and release a more stable and reliable version of it.
By not updating them, you use the old version, with known coding issues. So, kind of inviting hackers to steal your site.
#5 Nulled Themes or Plugins
Many bloggers and even small business people try to save money. They buy the Premium themes from the third party at low prices.
The prices may looks lucrative, but the deal is not profitable when you dig a little bit.
Those sellers hide codes in the themes and plugins files. These hidden codes give them a back entry to your store.
After entering, they can run a DDoS attack or sell backlinks from your site. Besides hacking, nulled theme and plugins also affect the speed of WordPress site.
Instead of using Nulled themes, you can use a free alternative from the WordPress repository.
#6 WordPress Admin Directory
The wp-admin directory is the most critical file of any WordPress site. Still, site owners ignore protecting it.
Wp-Admin files are already password protected with WordPress username-password. You can increase the security by password protecting the wp-admin directory itself.
You can use C-Panel or .htaccess file to do this.
C-Panel Method:
Login to your C-Panel. There you will find the “Password Protect Directories”, in the security tab.
From there, you can add additional password security to any WordPress directory you want. So make a password for wp-admin.
.htaccess Method
Step-by-step process to protect wp-directory with .htaccess:
- Create .htpasswds file with Generator.
- Upload the file to the place that is not Public Accessible
- For eg: home/user/.htpasswds/public_html/wp-admin/passwd/
- Create a .htaccess file
- Upload the file in the wp-admin directory
- Add this code to the .htacess file:
AuthName "Admins Only"
AuthUserFile /home/yourdirectory/.htpasswds/public_html/wp-admin/passwd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthType basic
require user putyourusernamehereChange the pathway from line 2. Put your username at the place of username.
#7 Securing Wp-Config
Wp-Config contains all the information about your Login details.
Anyone with access here can easily change the password or username.
It is better to add an extra layer of security around this vital folder.
Add this code to the .htaccess file:
<files wp-config.php>
order allow, deny
deny from all
</files>
This little code denies any permission to access wp-config of the website.
#8 Disable File Editing
All the WordPress coding is mostly back-end. But WordPress provides you with the File Editor in front-end too.
You can modify the code of both Plugins and Themes from there.
WordPress advised against it if you don’t have much programming knowledge. Any wrong coding could lead to the breaking of the site.
That is one concern. Another one is the security issue.
If somehow someone gets access to your WordPress admin area, the intruder can access all of the WordPress site data with the help of Editor.
By adding suitable codes, a hacker can make various attacks or get your login details.
It is highly advisable to keep all the Editors disable.
You can do it quickly from C-Panel.
- Login into the C-Panel
- Open File Manager
- Find wp-config file
- Edit the file
- Add “define( ‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true );”
- Save it
It will disable all the file editing from the front-end.
#9 Using wp-admin
If you log in to your site with this URL:
www.yoursite.com/wp-admin
You need to change it right now. On the surface, it is not essential, but hiding your admin page is a smart thing to do.
In brute force attack, hackers generally try to guess your username and password. But to do that, he needs to access the login page.
If there is no login page, then there is nothing for hackers to direct their attack at.
You can easily hide the WordPress login page with a simple Plugin, called WPS Hide Plugin.
Must Read: How to Disable Directory Browsing in WordPress?
Up to You
The thing about hackers is they will always be there. It is up to you to take care of your Online Business.
You can start protecting your site by getting a high-quality Web Hosting Service.
A good Web Hosting solves half the problems and helps in solving the other half. You can check our impeccable Web hosting Solutions yourself here.
We hope this article helped you in learning about how to protect your site from getting hacked.
