Why You Need a Security Plugin for Your WordPress Site

Lets start by looking at WordPress. WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems out there right now. It is used by over 60 million websites and 23.2% of the top 10 million websites are using WordPress, give or take a little since the web is always growing.

With that many websites out there using the same system, it makes the life of a hacker that much easier. If they find a way to get into someone else’s WordPress site, then they are already close to figuring out how to get into yours. Think of it like hot-wiring a car. Once a person learns how to do it once, it’s not that hard to go do it on a second car.

Once a hacker gets into your website they are going to change the site for the worst. Whether that is just taking the site down entirely, or making your site start installing malware on your computer. It’s never a good thing when a hacker gets into your site.

But have no fear, there is a solution to this. A security plugin can help make things a little more complicated for the average hacker to get into your site. At In2itive Search we chose to go with iThemes security, because it has great features and is getting plenty of updates that improve how well your site is secured.

iThemes to the Rescue

Here are a few of the ways iThemes helps protect your site:

• Limit the Number of Failed Login Attempts
  • One tactic for a hacker to get into your site is to just keep trying different usernames and passwords until they get through. Limiting the number of failed logins someone can make to a number, such as three, makes this much more difficult to pull off.
• Strong Password Enforcement
  • One of the best ways to protect your site is to just have a really good password. Not one that is easy to remember, but one that uses random numbers and letters, maybe throw some special characters in there too.
• File Change Detection
  • If a hacker gets into your site they will want to change some files. That’s the whole point of them getting in. Having a plugin that alerts you when a file is changed unexpectedly will allow you to lockdown your site before it gets too damaged.

Don’t Forget to Backup Your Site

These are just a few of the features that this plugin offers to help improve your site. There are 30 total and more being added with updates. However, this plugin is only part of keeping your site protected. The most important part of protecting your site is backing everything up. Making sure your database and site files are all backed up regularly means that you will always have the ability to restore your site if something goes wrong. You should be doing this not only in case of a site hacking, but in case something goes wrong with your server as well.

So keep your site protected and backed up. A site that goes down, or is full of malware, is the worst kind of site to have.