8 Great Ways To Protect Your WordPress Site From Vicious Hackers

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Wordpress is the most popular content management systems (CMS) for websites. In fact I use it not only for this site, but for the majority of client sites as well. It is extremely flexible and can be customized for just about any business need. Previously, I have discussed the importance of focusing on your own website over social media, and whether you need a simple business website or a full blown e-commerce shopping cart, WordPress can meet almost any business need. Unfortunately with most CMS platforms there will be those who look to expose loopholes within those systems, which means that WordPress is not exempt from these hackers. In fact, WordPress is frequently updated not only to add new features, but to close known loopholes. However, you should not rely solely on the most recent update to for WordPress protection. I will give you my list of plugins that can help strengthen your site and how to protect your WordPress site from hackers. Not only will these plugins help, but you will need to install a SSL certificate on your WordPress website as well. While nothing will protect you 100% from attacks, using these plugins will definitely decrease the chances of it happening through better WordPress security measures.

Take a Stand Against WordPress Hackers

Most hackers will look for anyway into your WordPress site they can find. Most commonly through attempting to login to your site through /wp-admin/. Luckily for us, there are some good plugins to help combat these attempts. Keep in mind that keeping your site clean from hacks can help your website speed increase. So it's very important to take a stand.

Bulletproof Security

One of the more popular methods for protecting a WordPress site against XSS, RFI, CRLF, CSRF, Base64, Code Injection and SQL Injection attacks is through the use of this plugin. While it might be overwhelming at first glance after installing it, this plugin does quite a bit with minimal effort on your part. Simply follow the steps and messages displayed and you will easily get your website protected against common attacks found on WordPress sites. Protect WordPress against hacking attempts

Login Security Solution

This simply plugin will block brute force attacks and track login IP addresses, usernames, and passwords. It takes just mere seconds to install and configure. A feature that I like is the option to setup email notifications of breach attempts so you can be immediately notified of any suspicious activity on your site. Get the WordPress Login Security Solution

Protect Your WordPress Files

Being proactive in monitoring and protecting your WordPress files provides your site better chances of preventing malicious injections that will ultimately compromise your website.

WordPress Antivirus

This plugin is as simple as it can get. Once installed, just provide an email address for notifications. This plugin will automatically scan your files daily and send you an email notification should something need your attention. Install WordPress Antivirus

WordPress File Monitor Plus

Knowing when a file has been added, changed, or deleted automatically will help you combat potential hackers. Installing this plugin is a breeze and straightforward. Among the options you have are email notifications, admin alerts, and include/exclude the monitoring of specific file extensions. Monitor WordPress file changes 

WordPress Update Notifications

If you are like me, you are often guilty of "ignoring" the update available notification you get when you are logged into your WordPress admin panel. Additionally, if you have many WordPress sites, it can be tough to stay on top of which installations or plugins need to be updated. By not updating your plugins and files, you are opening the door to having your site compromised. This simple plugin will email you whenever an update is needed. Now there is no more excuses for not updating your installation and plugins. Get notified of updates for WordPress plugins and core files

Backing Up Your WordPress Site

If you do not have a current backup of your WordPress site, you are severely risking all of the hard work you have put in to building your site. Would your site get hacked, it can be very costly to fix, or even worse you could actually lose all your files. There are many plugins available (as you will see below) which can automate this process for you. I recommend using a combination of plugins to ensure you have multiple instances of backups should one become corrupt or unable to be opened/re-installed. Having a clean backup will allow you to easily fix your hacked WordPress site in most cases by re-uploading a previous instance of your website.

Online backup for WordPress

This simple plugin will allow you to easily backup your WordPress site. Like many WordPress backup plugins, this one is simple to install. This plugin encrypts your data while it is downloaded, emailed, and stored. Apart from this, you can leverage AI-Powered bots for an automatic backup of your websites. One potential disadvantage is that the service used to store your backup will only store up to 100MB for free. If your backup is larger, you may have to pay for more storage. Backup WordPress online

WordPress Backup to Dropbox

To me, this plugin is a no brainer. Dropbox is excellent for many reasons (to get an account click here). Your basic Dropbox account should have more than enough storage space for your WordPress backup unless you have thousands of posts, images, etc. on your site. Even then, simply upgrade your Dropbox account and you should have enough storage space. What is great about this plugin is that it is truly a set it and forget it WordPress backup plugin. Simply install it and connect it to your Dropbox account, configure a few settings and you are good to go. Be sure to select your database to be backed up as well. Backup WordPress to Dropbox

Google Drive for WordPress

As an avid user of Google Drive, backing up my WordPress site to this service makes perfect sense. This plugin is simple to setup and before you know it, your Google Drive account will be connected to your WordPress site. When setting this up, be sure to click "yes" to backup your database as well. If you do not select this, then you are only backing up your files. Backup WordPress with Google Drive

How are You Protecting Your WordPress Site?

While there are no doubt many available plugins for protecting your WordPress site, which ones do you use on your websites? Have you found them to help minimize successful hacking attempts on your website? Or, maybe you have put off being proactive and ended up with a monster headache trying to get your site back online? Sound off with your experiences, both good and bad in the comments below. Or if you know a business owner who has had issues protecting their site, be sure to send them a link to this post on how to secure WordPress. And if all else fails, you might need to start over by resetting your WordPress site.
25 Comments
  • Elmarie Porthouse December 18, 2013

    Thanks for these, Chris. There are some I haven’t installed but really need.

    • Chris Makara December 19, 2013

      You are welcome Elmarie. There are definitely quite a few of them out there to choose from…it can be tough to find the right mix for your needs 🙂

      • Elmarie Porthouse December 19, 2013

        There are so many to choose from, that I prefer using the ones knowledgeable people like yourself refer me to 🙂

  • Michael Musto April 2, 2014

    Great advice! I use most of these already Chris, but one I hadn’t used, helped out a ton just today. The Login Security Solution plugin has stopped the flow of spam account registrations. I was getting up to 30 per day, but I haven’t had any since yesterday after I installed it.

    • Chris Makara April 3, 2014

      I’ll have to check that one out Michael as I have not used it. Thanks for the heads up!

  • Alex Cooper May 4, 2014

    I’m a big fan of the Google Authentication plugin. It offers two factor authentication for your WordPress sure alongside your other authentication apps.

    • Chris Makara May 6, 2014

      Alex – I have been meaning to give that one a whirl as well. Thanks for the reminder and thanks for stopping by to leave a comment.

  • Dale Morris June 12, 2014

    Hey Chris,
    I’m personally liking Securi, Backup Buddy and a couple of other simpler backup apps. I completely agree with you as to having a backup system to your backup system.
    Another nice article.
    Thanks,
    Dale

    • Chris Makara June 13, 2014

      Great recommendations Dale. Definitely a good idea to have a backup to your backup! Thanks for taking the time to drop a comment 🙂

  • Jan Koch October 2, 2014

    Very interesting post, a friend shared it with me on Twitter.
    I protect my site as follows:
    I use the WordPress firewall WordFence that monitors file changes, login attacks, blocks IP ranges that are known to be malicious, etc.
    My site is backed up weekly to my Dropbox account. I have hardened the file permissions and removed the wp-index.php from my WP root folder. My database user has the minimal rights necessary. My .htaccess contains some neat stuff to prevent attacks. I’m currently outlining a plan to move to SSL. And some more things 🙂

    Cheers,
    Jan

    • Chris Makara October 2, 2014

      It sounds like you have a very good approach Jan. Wordfence is a great plugin and the other steps you outlined are great ones. I have also thought about moving to SSL, but have not done much about it yet 🙂 Keep me posted on how the move to SSL goes for you!

  • Steven October 21, 2014

    Awesome tips, Chris ☺ I use the following (using them alongside each other makes it a nightmare to hackers):

    1. WP Content Copy Protection (a ton of content protection features and a personal favorite simply because it works, and its the best in content protection) : http://yooplugins.com/downloads/wp-content-copy-protection-pro/ (free version available here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-content-copy-protection/)

    2. CodeCipher : obfuscate your HTML and encrypt your JS source code output (keep source away from hackers) : http://yooplugins.com/downloads/wp-codecipher/

    3. WP Image Copyright notice (adds elegant image copyright notice to image context and can be used to extend WPCCP) : http://yooplugins.com/downloads/wp-image-copyright-notice/

    4. Printoflauge : can be used to extend WPCCP – replaces users printing clipboard with warning message : http://yooplugins.com/downloads/wp-printoflauge/

    5. Pic-Decoy – The BEST image protection plugin for WordPress (in the world) : replaces all your images with invisible blank images and when a user attempts to copy your images (in any way possible), then blank images are served instead of the real ones : http://yooplugins.com/downloads/wp-pic-decoy/

    • Chris Makara October 24, 2014

      Great stuff Steven. I’ll definitely try to look into these when I get a chance.

  • Fatima Hussain April 3, 2015

    Great stuff! I get lost and emotional if I get minor issues with my Blog! I can’t imagine what I’d do if something major happened! This information is very useful, Hosting company has suspended my account due to some infected files uploaded by hacker 0r i don’t know my site name is brightverge.com please share some tips to make strong my site security. I thank you for you time & effort, it’s clearly not one of these 5 minutes posts! Quality! Love it, regards

    • Chris Makara April 3, 2015

      Hi Fatima – It looks like the URL is suspended. Without being able to see the site/files, I can’t tell what the issue is. Please contact me (https://chrismakara.com/contact/) and we can discuss further. Thanks!

  • John Crooks March 11, 2016

    Thanks for the list, your blog posts are consistently worth reading.
    I’m curious about your Popup (that encourages newsletter signups)? Is it a plugin or have you custom-coded it? Nice new effect on it, too!
    For plugins, I found P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) which shows how much lag time each plugin is using on your site — helps decide whether a plugin is worth using or not.
    Thanks!

    • Chris Makara March 24, 2016

      Sorry for the late reply…Right now I am using OptinMonster for overlays 🙂

  • Mohd Arif March 22, 2016

    I really love the security plugin called Wordfence. It allow me to auto block any IP trying to hack my site, it notifies me of out-of-date plugins, and if you do get hacked it will show you which files have been changed, then show you a comparison of before and after, and easily allow you to go back to the previous version of any file. The basic model is also free with the option of a more advanced paid model. Very slick and super easy to set up and use.

    • Chris Makara March 24, 2016

      Yes, Wordfence is a must have. I should probably update this blog post to mention it 🙂

  • Mohd Arif May 19, 2016

    thank you for sharing this informative piece of work. I have been using yoast plugin since last few years. The plugin is simple, yet covers all the essential features required to optimize the blog for search results.

  • Ashley Jones June 18, 2021

    As someone else said, WP Rocket caching plugin wins hands down over W3 Total cache IMHO. Used W3 for years on many sites and it was always time-consuming to set up and test with various site configurations, particularly using a lot of js. One day it started throwing up an error I just didn’t have time to try and sort out, so I tried out WP Rocket. In all honesty, I installed it, clicked a few things – and it ran. Slowly rolled it out across other sites and found it a breeze, and the speed increase was great. Downside for some – you will have to pay for it. But I have found that if you just want something to work, shell out and pay for the premium. Build it into the site cost. Done the same for Yoast and others. As an aside – found the same with backup solutions. Faffed around with different things, but found that Vaultpress was the same deal as WP Rocket. Paying for it and it ‘just works’. Install and forget. Am going to check out your guys social warfare plugin as I like the look of it.

    • Chris Makara June 18, 2021

      Hey Ashley, thanks for the comment. I’ve actually been using Nitropack lately on some of my sites and am very pleased with it. However, if you’re happy with WPRocket there’s no need to change 🙂

  • Ashley Jones September 16, 2021

    I have looked at several “best wordpress plugins” lists and this one is pretty good because it narrows things down to a few best plugins for every type of functionality.

    • Chris Makara September 17, 2021

      Thanks for the kind words, Ashley. I’m glad you found this list useful!

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