Essential Wordpress Security Plugins

10 Must Use Plugins to Improve Your WordPress Security

If you missed my previous article on securing your wordpress blog, you can read it @ http://frontpagemail.com/sixfigurebusiness/243/Essential-Tips-to-Keep-Your-WordPress-Blog-Secure

If you have a WordPress website, security should be a primary concern of yours. In many cases WordPress blogs are at risk because of outdated plugins and files. These outdated files can be traced by hackers making them a prime choice. If you want to keep your blog away from the hackers make sure you are always up to date and ensure these 10 plugins are installed.

#1 Login Lockdown

– The Login Lockdown plugin will assist you to lock attempts after a specified period of time and/or specified number of attempts to log in to your admin panel keeping your site that much more secure, because hackers can’t continue to try until successful.

#2 Stealth Login

- The Stealth Login plugin will assist you to create custom URL addresses for login, for your registering and for your logout of WordPress.

#3 User Locker

- If your goal is to stop brute-force hacking on your website, then the User Locker plugin is exactly what you need. The User Locker works on the same system as the Login Lockdown plugin. However, it is a 5-stars rated WP plugin and those who use it think highly of it.

#4 Login Encryption

- Login Encrypt is another security plugin. It takes advantage of complex combinations of DES and RSA to both encrypt and secure logging into the admin panel keeping your site safer.

#5 Antivirus

- Antivirus is a popular security plugin which will assist you in keeping your WordPerss blog secured against viruses, malwares, and bots.

#6 Exploit Scanner

- Search the files and database of your WordPress install for any signs that your files or your WordPress database have been compromised to ruthless hackers. Even though it is another plugin that scans it’s still worth trying.

#7 Block Bad Queries

- This plugin attempts to block away all malicious queries attempted on your server and WordPress blog. It works in background, checking for excessively long request strings (i.e., greater than 255 chars), as well as the presence of either "eval(" or "base64" in the request URI.

#8 WP-DB Manager

-This is an excellent plugin that lets you manage your WP database. You can use it rather than WordPress Backup Manager.

#9 Limit Login Attempts

–The Limit Login Attempts plugin blocks the internet address from making any further attempts after a specified limit of retries has been reached. This plugin makes it more difficult for a hacker to use a brute-force attack.

#10 Ask Apache Password Protect

- This plugin will not mess with your WordPress database and it doesn’t control WordPress but rather it uses reliable built-in security features to add numerous multiple layers of security to your WordPress blog.

Essential Plugins to Harden Your WordPress Security

If you are running a WordPress site, security needs to be your primary concern. In many cases, WordPress blogs are compromised because of outdated core files and/or plugins. Files that are outdated can be traced and you are providing hackers with an open invitation to your site. Here are some essential plugins to make sure you have installed.

WP DB Backup

WP DB Backup is an easy to use plugin that allows you to backup your core WordPress database tables with just a few mouse clicks. Don’t let its ease of use fool you – this is a powerful tool and it remains one of the most popular plugins to secure WordPress powered websites.

WP Security Scan

Using this plugin, scanning your WordPress site become a simple task to carry out. It will find the vulnerabilities in your website and it provides useful tips on removing them.

WP-DB Manager

This is yet another terrific plugin that lets you manage your WP database. It can be used as an option rather than using the WordPress Backup Manager.

Ask Apache Password Protect

This plugin does not control WordPress, nor will it mess with your database. Rather it uses speedy, proven built-in security features that provide a number of multiple security layers to your blog.

Admin SSL Secure Plugin

This is another plugin for keeping your admin panel secure. It acts on your SSL encryption and is extremely helpful against hackers or others who are attempting to get access to your panel that isn’t allowed. It is an adversary for the Chap Secure Login Plugin.

Limit Login Attempts

Limit Login Attempts blocks the internet address from making any further attempts after a specified number of retries has been reached, which makes a brute-force attack next to impossible.

One Time Password

This unique plugin will help you to set a one-time password for your login. This will stop unwanted users from logging in from internet cafes or other open sites.

Bad Behaviour

Bad Behaviour is a plugin that aids in fighting annoying spammers. The plugin will help you prevent spam messages on your blog, and it will also attempt to limit access to your WordPress blog, so they will not even be able even to read it.

User Spam Remover

This plugin has a name that gives away just what its function is. This is a popular plugin that helps in the prevention and removal of unwanted spam messages.

There you have it – a handful of essential plugins you should install on your WordPress blog.

5 Things You Can do to Secure Your WordPress Site

Making sure your WordPress site is secure from hackers is important. Being hacked is no laughing matter. It can result in a loss of all your data, the collection of your personal information and that of your customers or followers, and it can put you at risk financially.

Let’s look at 5 things you can do to help secure your WordPress site.

#1 Fix Any Malware Issues

Find a way to clean up detected malware issues. It’s common for blog owners to underestimate the cost of being down related to security problems or the time it takes to deal with an issue. Sucuri is a good solution for removing malware.

#2 Choose a Reliable Hosting Provider

If you have your blog on a server that is shared your security risk goes up tenfold. Consider the risk to your blog and then multiply that risk by the number of other sites and blogs on that server. That’s what your risk is. A dedicated server or VPS may be more than you can handle, but another good choice is WordPress hosting that’s managed. It’s certainly worth the cost as you get better security, better support, a faster site and automatic backups.

#3 It’s Time to do Some Site Clean Up

You need to keep your blog nice and tidy. Remove old plugins you aren’t using. Delete themes you no longer use. Host your live website on one server. Host websites that are in development on a different server.

#4 Control Sensitive Data

When you are doing your site clean-up, make sure you aren’t leaving behind any sensitive data for the world to be able to gain access to. Check all of your php files, because these are like road maps to your site setup and give a hacker all of the information they need to ‘bust in.’

Don’t keep your backups on the server with your site files. That’s just encouraging a hacker to download them and use them to hack you’re the site. Disable directory browsing to stop a hacker from seeing the blog’s folders.

Be careful when you are using the CPanel file manager and having it save copies of your important files temporarily. You are much better off using secure file transfer protocol.

#5 Don’t Let Your Guard Down

This might seem obvious, but it’s not always practiced. You need to be vigilant about staying on top of everything on your site. This will decrease the risk of being hacked.

Being aware of the dangers of hackers is the start to making your website safe and less of a target.

That’s just a few essential tips to keep your WordPress blog secure. There are plenty of others. Remember the more you do the less you are at risk.

Thank you for taking the time to read my latest article.

In addition you can read my article on keeping yourself & your family safe whilst online @ Protecting Your Families Security Whilst Online

Additional Resources:

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Best regards

Pete