5 Reasons WordPress Sites Get Hacked and What To Do About It
Over 31% of the internet is built using WordPress, making it the most used open-source content management system (CMS) in the world with around 18M active websites and counting. However, being the most popular also comes with being more exposed to lots of malicious threats.
In this article, we will share the top 5 reasons why WordPress sites get hacked, so you safely protect your site.
All websites are vulnerable
First of all, it’s not just WordPress. All websites on the internet are vulnerable to hacking attempts. But WordPress immense popularity gives hackers an easier way to find less secure websites than others.
Hackers may have different motives to crack on a website’s code, some beginners are simply learning and testing their skills. Others may have real malicious intents, such as distributing malware, spamming, or even using your site to attack other websites.
With that said, let’s take a look at some of the top causes of WordPress sites are getting hacked, and how to prevent your website from getting affected.
1. Insecure Web Hosting
Web hosting is a service that provides the technology needed to publish a website on the internet, it stores your web files to special computers called servers. Servers connect your website files to the world wide web through browsers such as Google Chrome, Firefox, and many others.
Like all websites, WordPress sites are hosted on a web server. Unfortunately, some hosting companies do not properly secure their hosting platform making all websites hosted on their servers vulnerable to hacking attempts.
This can be easily avoided by choosing or switching to a better WordPress hosting provider, we personally recommend SiteGround, for their great support, features and specialization on WordPress sites.
Properly secure servers can block any types of threats on WordPress sites.
2. Weak Passwords
Passwords are the key to accessing your website. Weak passwords are easy for hackers to crack by using some basic hacking tools. Choosing a strong and unique set of characters can help prevent your website from being entered easily. Thus avoid giving hackers complete access to the most important files in your website and server such as cPanel, email accounts, and websites admin accounts locking you out from your own website.
3. Not Updating WordPress
WordPress is a free platform and is developed by a large community of developers. With each new release, they fix bugs, add new features, improve performance, and enhance existing features to stay up to date with new industry standards.
So in other words, when you do not update your WordPress site, you are risking your website security and missing out on new features and even security improvements
If you are afraid that an update will break your website, then you can create a complete WordPress backup before running an update. This way, if something doesn’t work, then you can easily revert back to a previous version.
4. Not Updating Plugins and Themes
Just like the core WordPress installation, updating your theme and plugins is equally important. Using an outdated plugin or theme can also make your site vulnerable.
Security flaws and bugs are often discovered in plugins and themes. Usually, theme and plugin authors are prompt to fix them up. However, if a user does not update their theme or plugin, it is no longer in the developer’s hands.
So, make sure you keep your WordPress theme and plugins always up-to-date.
5. Using “admin” as WordPress Username
Using the default “admin” username is usually a hacker’s go-to step when trying to hack a website. Choose your name carefully and try something unique, yet memorable and avoid basing it on personal information.
It’s important to pick unique and secure login credentials when you first create your website. However, it is possible to change those credentials after setting them up. Whether you’re concerned that you made an insecure choice, or simply want a username that better suits your needs, creating a new username for your site is not difficult.
Conclusion.
Start today, put in practice these easy security measurements and improve your WordPress website security. We encourage you to not limit to these tips to secure your site. We will be bringing more articles like this in the future to help you improve your website security. If you’re having a specific security issue that you cannot resolve, we strongly recommend hiring a professional or ask your hosting company if they can help.
See you on the next one.
Originally published at www.hitedigital.com on October 26, 2018.
