Do you have a WordPress site? How secure is it?
Many people think that having a WordPress hosted with a reputable hosting company means that the likelihood that it will be hacked is pretty low. Unfortunately, more than 70% of WordPress sites are susceptible to attacks.
If you are worried about the possibility of your website being hacked and loaded with malware, I’m going to answer some common questions that you might have.
There are many reasons why hackers are able to target a WordPress site but why do they do it?
In most cases it is to install malware on your site or to redirect your website to another spammy webpage. Sometimes the purpose of the hack is to steal email addresses of your customers or clients to even financial information such as credit card details.
It can even be used to launch DDoS attacks on larger websites.
Aside from your website being unusable, a hacked site as many negative consequences for you and your business.
Your customers’ data might be at risk of being stolen which will cause major problems especially since the introduction of GDPR last year. It isn’t just the material issues such as loss of data and having to recover your site which can often mean spending money for experts to get into your site again but it will have a negative impact on your reputation.
Some customers might be put off using your website again if it has been hacked in the past.
If your website has malware on it then the search engines (Google, Yahoo etc…) will put it onto what is known as a blacklist. In fact, over 9000 websites end up on this blacklist every day.
You know when you click on a link from Google and it displays a message stating “This site may harm your computer”? That’s a website on the blacklist. Organic search traffic reduces by around 95% for blacklisted sites.
To get off the blacklist and have the security warning removed from your site you can do this via the Google Search Console.
The best way to avoid being hacked is to ensure that your WordPress site is as protected as it can be. This includes:
These are all fairly straightforward things to implement but can make a real difference to the security of your site.
While you shouldn’t stress all day everyday about your site being hacked, you should be wary.
If your site is hacked it can cause an interruption to your business, loss of customer faith and land you in trouble if clients’ data is stolen or compromised.
Take the right security measures to keep your WordPress site safe and the chances of being hacked are greatly diminished.
At Darren Langley Web Design we offer enhanced security and back-ups as a core part of our monthly Aftercare Plans, so get in touch and feel free to ask us any questions you may have about WordPress website security.