Web security is an absolute MUST these days. Everyone has (or needs) a website.. heck, that’s the easy part!
But do you know how to protect your website? Or better yet, do you know how to fix your website once it’s already been hacked or infected?
Prevention is your best weapon against hackers, most websites we design or deal with these days use WordPress for CMS and that’s great, because WordPress offers a variety of free (that’s right, FREE) security plugins. Here’s a few we use and recommend:
BPS has a 4.8 out of 5 rating on WordPress! This plugins rewrites your website’s .htaccess files and makes them secure from invasion. Don’t worry if you didn’t understand that, the point is with a few minor options selection, this plugin does a great job at fortifying your website’s vulnerabilities.
This plugin has the same awesome rating of 4.8 out of 5. It’s extensive options and settings change some of the defaults settings of WordPress (user IDs, admin paths, etc..) making it much harder for hacker bots to invade your site.
Using 1 or both of these plugins will greatly increase the security of your website and give you some peace of mind.
HOWEVER! If your website does in fact get infected with malware or other hacks, these “prevention” and “defense” plugins are absolutely USELESS!!
Unless you are a PHP Guru and can easily navigate your way through hundreds of lines of code, finding and eliminating these hacks and malware is next to impossible! Most WordPress forums online will simply tell you to “nuke” your site (which basically means: destroy it and start over)… but seriously, if you’ve been blogging for 5 years+, this is simply NOT an option!
Now unfortunately, this service is not free BUT is worth the expensive 10 times over! Sucuri will monitor your website and notify you immediately is a hack or malware is present (meaning someone got past your security plugins and infected your website). Sucuri will then proceed to remove the infection and restore your website (often overnight!). No need to panic, no need to nuke! Just sit back and watch the hackers fail!
No more worries!
So with these plugins and services, web hacks can in fact be beaten but it is definitely something you need to consider for your own website.