As a business owner, having a secure website should be one of your top priorities to avoid the inconveniences and expenses that come with data breaches and hacks that have become quite common lately. Yes, it takes some effort and financial investment to make your site more secure, but it is far less than the $25,000 that the average small business spends to deal with cyberattacks after they happen.
One of the most effective ways to make your website secure is by designing it with security in mind, integrating security features at every stage of its development. Making security an afterthought can turn out to be costly in the long run, as it may require rebuilding certain aspects of the site to implement necessary security features. Today, I would like to walk you through the key aspects you can implement when designing and building your site.
What Does ‘Security by Design’ Mean for WordPress Websites?
Security by design refers to integrating security best practices during the development and setup of a WordPress site rather than adding them after the site is live. Fixing vulnerabilities after an attack is more costly and time-consuming than preventing them upfront. Having your site created with security in mind protects sensitive data and ensures smooth functionality right from the beginning.
Key Steps to Build a Secure WordPress Site
Here are the essential steps to consider when designing and setting up your WordPress site to ensure its security.
Choose a Secure Hosting Provider
Hosting providers play a critical role in site security. And remember, when your site is up and running, switching from one provider to another can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and will disrupt business operations. That’s why it is crucial to choose a hosting provider that offers the key security features your business needs. The crucial features that you must carefully consider when making your choice include:
- Backups: Choose a provider that offers daily backups or weekly ones to allow you to recover your site in case of a breach or a significant misconfiguration. When choosing a hosting provider, consider not only the frequency of backups but also the variety of locations available for storage. Opt for a provider that supports multiple locations, like cloud storage, and allows you to download the backup file for local storage.
- Server-level Firewalls: Firewalls block malicious traffic from accessing your site. Using server-level firewalls is much more secure than using firewalls offered by security plugins.
- Malware protection: Some hosting providers offer malware scanning and removal as a feature in their subscription plans. This feature automatically removes any detected malware files from your site to prevent any further issues.
- DDOS Protection: Some hosting providers have security infrastructure to protect your website from DDoS attacks. This safeguards your site from DDOS attacks that could render your site unusable by your actual target customers.
Some popular hosting options that offer most of the essential WordPress-specific security features include SiteGround, Kinsta, WPEngine, and Hostinger.
Secure Your Database
Your website’s database holds sensitive information like user credentials, making its security crucial. Here’s how to improve its security when building your site:
- Strong Credentials: Use unique and complex usernames and passwords for your database to make it difficult for attackers to gain access. You can generate these using a password manager.
- Limit Access: Restrict database connections to specific IP addresses or ranges to minimize the risk of unauthorized access.
- Regular Backups: Create and maintain regular database backups to ensure you can recover data in case of a breach or accidental data loss. Most hosting providers offer the option to back up your database, either separately or with your website files.
Adjust File Permissions
Set appropriate file permissions to prevent unauthorized users from modifying critical files within your WordPress installation. This helps safeguard your site’s integrity. For instance, the wp-config.php file, which contains sensitive information, should have limited write access to enhance security.
You could also opt to move the wp-config.php file outside of the public web root, making it inaccessible directly from the internet. This can be done by implementing server-level rules in .htaccess to explicitly block web access to the wp-config.php file and other sensitive website files, further enhancing security.
Implement Secure Authentication and Login Features
Ensure these features are included in your site before making it available to users:
- Enforce strong passwords for all accounts. Once again use a password manager to generate these strong passwords.
- Disable login hints that reveal if the username or password is incorrect. This minimizes the chances of successful DDOS attacks.
- Use plugins to limit login attempts and block IPs after failed attempts. This strategy also protects your site from brute-force attacks.
- Set up two-factor authentication (2FA) for admin accounts to add an extra layer of protection. You can use security plugins like Wordfence for this.
Use Secure Plugins and Themes from Day One
First of all, you must download plugins and themes only from trusted sources, like the WordPress repository or reputable marketplaces like ThemeForest and Evanto. Avoid nulled or pirated themes/plugins as they often contain malware or backdoors that hackers can use to access files on your site.
When choosing your theme, pay attention to these security features:
- Regular Updates: Look for themes with a history of frequent updates. Regular updates are crucial for patching security vulnerabilities and improving performance. Abandoned themes pose a significant security risk as they won’t receive necessary updates.
- Security Features: Some themes include basic security features like input sanitization and output escaping. These help prevent common vulnerabilities like cross-site scripting (XSS).
- Know vulnerabilities: Make sure you choose a theme that doesn’t have any known major vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit to access your site. You can do a couple of Google searches to determine if a theme of your choice has any critical vulnerabilities.
Remember, changing a theme is not a straightforward process and can require significant effort and resources, depending on the size and complexity of your site. Therefore, take the time to ensure that the one you install initially has robust security capabilities to avoid inconveniences along the way.
Use HTTPS from the Start
Install an SSL/TLS certificate immediately upon setting up the site to encrypt all traffic. Many hosting providers offer free SSL certificates via Let’s Encrypt. You can use plugins like Really Simple SSL to configure HTTPS properly across your site. Websites with SSL certificates are also the most trustworthy to users since browsers will not constantly flag them with security error messages whenever they try to access your website.
Don’t wait for tomorrow! Add all those security features to your site as soon as possible. This will save you time, money, and the inconvenience of cyberattacks down the road.