Your website is one of your online business’ greatest assets. It is the key to generating organic traffic to build your business as well as the home for the forms that collect email addresses to build your list (arguably the MOST important asset of your business).
WordPress is one of the most popular platforms for hosting websites and consequently one of the most targeted platforms for hackers trying to disrupt your business and/or get money from you by encrypting your site and charging you to get it restored.
There are a number of steps that you can take to minimize the risk…
- keep backups of your site so you can restore to a previous version if needed
- keep your WordPress version up to date
- Use as few Plug-ins as possible to minimize attack vectors
- keep the plug-ins up to date
In addition to these steps, I highly recommend that the first plug-in you install is Wordfence.
Wordfence is a security plug-in that does many things to keep you site safe such as:
- Monitor logins and notify you when someone with admin rights has logged in to your site
- provides Two-Factor authentication for added security
- performs regular malware scans of your site
- notifies you of changes to site files
- blocks known bad IP’s from accessing the site
- notifies you of increased attempts to hack your site
I have been using the plug-in for a number of years on my sites and it’s the first thing I add to a WordPress site.
There are a number of versions including a free and a Premium version – I use both. For sites that I plan to keep around for a longer period of time, I get the Premium version as you get updated IP Blocklist on a more frequent basis as well as additional benefits. You can compare the versions here:
https://www.wordfence.com/products/pricing/#compare-plans (no affiliate link – I think it is really important for you have this product!).
Please do yourself a favour and install a version of Wordfence on your WordPress sites as soon as possible!
Talk soon!