How to protect your WP website against cyber-attacks

November 23. 2020

Designing a decent website is never an easy thing. You need to carefully plan and optimize it so that it is intuitive and easy to navigate. And you pick the right design style and color scheme in order to make it appealing to a wide audience. But, arguably, the most important thing you need to ensure is that your website is safe. With that in mind, let us explore how to protect your WP website against cyber-attacks.

Understanding the importance of web safety

If you are new to WP website development you might be wondering is web safety worth dealing with? Surely the people at WP do all that is necessary to keep their website as safe as possible, right? Well, not quite. While the good people WP do most of the lifting when it comes to safety, there is still a considerable amount of things that you, as the website owner, will have to deal with. Know that the safety of your website is not only connected to your client’s private data and your own. But, it can also impact your website’s performance and even compromise its core systems. Once you realize this you will clearly see that handling your web safety is vital.

Making a safe website

Website safety is something that you need to tackle from the moment you start designing your website. The first thing to do is to plan your website properly. A well-planned website is easy to properly design. And a properly designed website is the first step towards website safety. A website that is patched together and reworked will have a ton of potential weak spots for cyber attacks. This is why it necessary to design your website properly from the get-go and plan for further content and plugins. This, and many other reasons that we will later mention, are why hiring a good web designer is key. They will not only help you create your website but also assist you with regular maintenance and issues.

Protect your WP website against cyber-attacks

With a well-designed website at hand, you start handling protection itself. A safe website has multiple layers of defense working together to prevent and deal with cyber-attacks. Luckily, most of these layers are completely automated, which means that you won’t have to deal with much once you set them up.

Using safety plugins

Seeing that website safety is something that every web manager has to deal with, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that there are numerous plugins that make that easier. Some can be costly as they provide all-encompassing monitoring and safety. While others are a bit more cost-effective and are catered towards simpler websites. Your job is to weigh out your budget and your safety needs and find the plugin that suits you best. Among the top that we have to recommend are:

• All in One WP Security & Firewall
• Block Bad Queries
• Defender
• Google Authenticator
• iThemes Security
• MalCare Security
• Sucuri Security
• VaultPress
• Wordfence Security
• WP Security Audit Log

Some are more catered towards rookie users, while others provide more advanced security functions. Our advice is to carefully study your website and look into which cyber attacks are most common. Some benefit from adding reCaptcha to their comment form, while others need extra safety for their eCommerce store. Your job is to find what works for you. With luck, you should be able to find a decent set of plugins that will efficiently protect your website.

Regular updates

The second thing to note is that it is paramount that you keep your WP website up to date. Like we mentioned before, the good people at WordPress do their best to keep their software safe and well-optimized. But, if you do not update your website regularly, all their work is going to waste. So, make sure that whenever a new version of WP comes along, you are fast to install it.

And, while we are on the subject of updates, you will also have to keep your plugins up to date. Some plugins can cause issues when updates, so make sure that you backup your website before updating it. There are terrific WP plugins that will backup your website on a regular basis, which is something that you should do anyhow.

When to consult a professional

So, now that you’ve designed a decent website and installed the necessary safety plugins, you are safe from cyber-attacks, right? Unfortunately, no. Even with top security measures, issues will pop-up. And once they do, you will need to consult with a professional. Ideally, this will be the same person that designed your website. After all, they have in-depth knowledge of how your website functions and how to maintain it properly. You should consult with your web designer at least once per year, just to ensure that everything is in order. Apart from that, feel free to inquire if you notice any safety issues. Even a drop in performance can be a sign of a cyber-attack, which is why you need to keep tabs on your website as much as possible. Don’t forget to check it on different platforms to ensure that everything is working properly.

Final thoughts on cyber-attacks

The final thought we are going to leave your with is that there is no full-proof way to protect your WP website against cyber-attacks. Even if you do everything right, a dedicated hacker can find a way to infiltrate and cause havoc. This is another reason why creating regular backups is a must. Furthermore, don’t fret about making your website 100% safe. You can’t. Instead, focus on protecting it from well know, automated attacks. Design it properly, install the necessary plugins, and keep it updated (both the plugins and the WP client). This will protect you from 99% of online attacks. Remember to regularly inspect it and deal with issues the moment they come up.