If your website is based on WordPress you need to be actively taking steps to protect your site. All it takes is one hack to completely obliterate your sites in the search engine results. After all who is going to visit your site when Google, or any other search provider, warns them against it every time you show up in the results.
WordPress Security is a big topic that encompasses lots of areas but installing a few good WordPress security plugins is the least that you should be doing to protect your website. Attacks on WordPress sites are on the rise with over 30,000 attacks in March this year alone. It's no longer enough to simply choose a strong password (was it ever?).
This post lists some of the best WordPress security plugins for protecting your site today. Every one of these plugins is in use on at least a few of the blogs we control and offers security features I would personally recommend in almost every case.
- Block Bad Queries (Free) – Protects from some of the most common hacking queries used in earlier attacks.
- WebsiteDefender (Free) – Adds many security tweaks and the features of two great WordPress security plugins under one solution.
- WordFence (Freemium) – Adds real-time security scanning, code authenticity checks, and malware scanning.
- WordPress Firewall 2 (Free) – Protects your site from code injections but can interfere with dashboard editing tools.
- Limit Login Attempts (Free) – This plugin stops brute force hackers by limiting attempts and blocking repeat failures.
When approaching any security situation it's important to remember that no one solution will protect you in every situation so it's important to add as many layers as possible. If you would like to dig a little deeper into WordPress security and lean how you can start locking down files on your server and protecting your content then you make sure to check out my new WP Secure Lockdown video course which goes beyond the basic plugin protection.
