Cyber threats are polluting the digital world rapidly, which does not seem to stop anytime soon. If your site is vulnerable enough, the precious confidential information and data from your site can be stolen by hackers, which may lead to financial loss or even legal hazards to some extent. Therefore, every online business owner must know how to protect their wordpress sites against malware.
Whatever online business you are running, loss of personal data is not something you can quickly recover from. Day by day, the number of cyber attacks are increasing all over the globe. We will tell you how many kinds of malware are there on the internet and also how to keep your wordpress site protected from all those. However, you may consult an agency that provides wordpress development service anytime to know about how to secure your website in detail.
How many kinds of malware are there?
Protecting your site against hackers has become a real challenge these days. Malware is undoubtedly one of the greatest threats to every kind of digital system. There are diverse ways of infecting a system, so protection is compulsory nowadays. Some of the common types of malware include
- Trojan Horse: It refers to a particular type of software that promises to have a single function but hiddenly performs another. It can corrupt your PHP files or Wordpress files or even exploit the resources of your system.
- Virus: The term ‘virus’ symbolizes a diverse range of malware. Sometimes, it may come in the form of a software program that inserts its own codes in other programs to replicate itself, or in the form of spam content on your site that may infect the devices of your visitors.
- Adware: This particular type of malware will force to interact with an advertisement before someone can visit a site. It may not be as harmful as its other variants, but it can be highly irritating and may hamper the reputation of any site in which it exists.
- Ransomware: This specific type of malware will hold you to ransom and you will not be able to use your site until and unless you pay its users to remove it completely from your site. This is one of the most harmful types of malware.
- Spyware: This type of malware usually stays hidden and is used for the purpose of information theft. Having spyware on your site can make you face the loss of personal or confidential data.
How to keep your site protected from all these?
- Keep your website updated always: The old versions of your site are likely to be vulnerable to cyber threats. Newer versions of wordpress include security updates that are purposed for providing safety against malware and other cyber attacks. Also, keep your themes and plugins updated always to keep your site secured.
- Keep regular backups: Regular backup of your precious data can save you from the loss caused by data theft. If your site gets infected, you may lose all your valuable and confidential data permanently. Hence, keeping regular backups is mandatory. There are so many types of plugins in wordpress that include the backup feature. You may also consider getting a support plan that comes with a backup feature.
- Don’t keep unused themes and plugins: Hackers may inject malicious codes through the security vulnerabilities of backdated plugins and themes. This is the reason why you must remove unused themes and plugins and only keep the ones that are trusted. It will reduce your chances of facing cyber-attacks.
- Use a robust security plugin: Security plugins can effectively help you to keep your site protected. There are several kinds of security plugins in wordpress that come with some robust security features. For all kinds of wordpress websites, the use of security plugins is a must.
- Choose only reliable hosting providers: Did you know how important it is to choose a quality hosting provider to ensure your website’s security? A lot of attacks may come through any security vulnerabilities of the hosting platform that you have chosen, so be careful enough while choosing your hosting provider.
- Keep strong login credentials: Don’t go for default username patterns like ‘admin’ or keep easily predictable passwords. It’s as good as a wide-opened door for hackers. Use strong passwords combining letters, numbers, and special characters. Also, don’t forget to implement two-factor authentication for enhanced security.
- Never allow file uploads without proper validation: If you are running a website that allows its users to upload files, don’t ever allow any file upload with proper validations. Hackers may upload malicious files that may even infect your site. Consider implementing strict security measures and proper file-validating guidelines for your users.
It may be challenging to keep your wordpress site protected, but not impossible. Implementation of proper security measures can help you keep your valuable data safe and run your wordpress site online without any worries. One more thing to remember is, that you should not install any theme or plugin if you are not sure about the origin of that. It is a good practice to only install themes and plugins that come from reputed and safe sources. There are many wordpress development companies in the market these days. You may also consider consulting a wordpress development company to know more in this regard.