The Dangers of Cybercrime and Tips to Protect your WordPress Website from Hackers

If you’re working as a copywriter or freelancer, you likely have a website showcasing your work. If this is the case, chances are that it will be running on the WordPress Content Management System (CMS). Over the last few years, WordPress (WP) has become the tool of choice for simple-to-set-up, easily-updatable websites. Covering everything from personal blog sites to corporate pages. Indeed, WP’s growth has become so extensive that estimates suggest it now powers around 37% of all websites worldwide – plus around 65% of all CMS sites. However, with this growth comes cybercrime. That’s why we’re handing out some tips to protect your WordPress from Hackers.

Reasons Why WordPress is Perfect for Portfolio Sites

There are many reasons why WordPress has grown so quickly: the platform offers several distinct advantages over its rivals. Not least of which is that it provides free of charge. However, moving past pricing alone, WP also trounces other CMSs through its easy-to-use interface. Making adding, editing or deleting pages or content a breeze. Not to mention putting users squarely in control.

Also (and of crucial importance in today’s highly competitive markets), WordPress prioritizes Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In turn, making it easier for your site to be found on search engines like Google, Bing, etc.

Lastly, WordPress is backed by a huge community and is one the most secure CMS platforms available today. Out of the box, WordPress offers industry-leading protection plus additional plugins that can offer increased security against hackers. That said, no online system can ever be 100% safe and, with such ubiquitous use across the net, WP sites are being increasingly targeted by hackers.

The Worrying Rise in Cybercrime

Although WP has many benefits for users, like every website, there is the risk of falling victim to cybercrime. The revenue generated by cybercrime in 2021 is forecast to total approximately $6 trillion globally. That figure is expected to rise to $10.5 trillion by 2025. These days, hackers are targeting more than just large multinationals: Their reach now expands from global companies right down to single-user blogging pages. Whether you use WP as a personal blog platform or as the backend for your showcase website, you should be aware that no online entity is above the sights of cybercriminals,

Indeed, recent stats show that hackers are increasingly viewing the sites of Small-to-Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) as an easy target. Unfortunately, a commonly-held belief among many smaller companies is that their firm is too insignificant or their revenue is too low to be a possible target. Quite the opposite is true. No matter how under-the-radar you feel, there are some simple steps you should take to protect your WP site.

The Importance of Securing Your WordPress Portfolio from Cybercrime

For most freelancers, a website is an integral tool for landing work and finding new clients. If your site goes down for any reason, it will likely have a dramatic impact on your income. A site breach could also damage your reputation if you unintentionally infect other users through malicious code on your pages or viruses affecting other tools such as email systems or shared files.

Tips to Protect Your WordPress Website from Cybercrime

Below are some tips from the pros you should use to defer hackers and keep your site safe. Alternatively, if you want the greatest protection without the headache of implementing the measures below, you could offload the responsibility to a professional WP maintenance company that will look after the security of your site for you – for more information, click here.

Choose a secure and reliable web host

You can install all the security and protective measures available but, if your underlying hosting service isn’t secure, you will remain at considerable risk. Choosing a reliable hosting partner to look after your data should be at the top of your list.

Install additional WP security plugins

If you do a quick search for WordPress plugins, you’ll be presented with a plethora of free and premium security add-ons that will give an additional layer of protection to your site.

Avoid using unsupported, out-of-date themes

Responsible developers regularly update their themes and monitor for possible backdoors or security breaches in their coding. If you’re using a theme that is no longer supported, you’re potentially leaving the door wide open for hackers to infiltrate your pages and steal or infect your data and pages. You should also avoid buying copycat, cracked or nulled themes. While it might feel like you’re saving money compared to shelling out for the official theme, these cheaper templates will likely be littered with malicious code that could wipe out your site or database – plus, in a worst-case scenario, might even infect your site visitors.

Install SSL on your site

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates were previously used for sites that transferred sensitive data (e.g. credit card numbers). This was a way to encrypt data between users, sites and servers. The advantages of adding SSL to your domain are two-fold:

• SSL gives an extra layer of protection to your site
• In recent years, Google has come to prioritize sites that have SSL installed – meaning, if you don’t have it, you will rank lower in Google searches.
• Few popular SSL certificate categories are single domain, wildcard SSL, multi-domain SSL, Code Signing certificate, etc. If a site has various subdomains then, a site developer can choose, for example, RapidSSL Wildcard, Comodo PositiveSSL Wildcard, Thawte wildcard SSL, etc. All of it depends upon the number of subdomains and domains, a website needs to be secured.

Change your default WP log-in page

WordPress uses the default log-in page, “yoursite.com/wp-admin” which could leave you wide open to brute force attacks intended to crack your username/password combination and gain access. Changing the standard wp-admin address will offer greater security. Also, as an additional step, you could set up Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) on your admin page. With 2FA, you’ll need to provide an extra password or code (normally sent by text message to your mobile device). While it’s possible a hacker might crack your user credentials, it’s unlikely they’ll also have access to your cell phone, so 2FA is a great way to keep unwanted intruders out.

Use strong, hard-to-guess, alphanumeric passwords

It should go without saying that you should avoid using easy-to-guess passwords. Yet, it’s surprising just how many WP admins still fall victim to credential-related attacks. To have the greatest protection, you should only use strong passwords and avoid using the same pass over multiple accounts. You should also change passwords regularly – most security firms recommend at least once a month.

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