As of the beginning of 2009 there were approximately 133 Million blogs online. WP Dev Suite Review This is a pretty large market and also the perfect playground for unscrupulous persons who live for spamming, scamming and just creating malicious programs that can seriously compromise and disable unsuspecting sites. As WordPress blog owners, we need to do everything possible to ensure that our sites are never compromised.
Here are 10 very simple steps, tools and tips to ensure that your blog can withstand malicious attacks and not be overrun with spam.
- Use Login Lockdown Plugin
Hackers can easily crack your password and other login credentials by using Brute Force Attacks (Click here for a definition). This plugin adds an extra security feature to WordPress by restricting the rate at which failed logins can be re-attempted from a given IP range.
- Delete Unused Plugins
Always ensure to delete unused plugins as these can provide loop holes that can be easily exploited.
- Secure the /wp-admin/ Directory using.htaccess
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I found this one on Google's Matt Cutts' blog. Secure your /wp-admin/ directory by using a.htaccess file to allow access from specific IP addresses only. Create a new.htaccess file, which you can place directly in /wp-admin/.htaccess.
This is what the.htaccess file contains:
AuthUserFile /dev/null
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "Access Control"
AuthType Basic
order deny,allow
deny from all
whitelist home IP address
allow from 111.111.111.111
whitelist work IP address
allow from 111.111.111.111
allow from 111.111.111.111
Replace the 111.111.111.111 with the IPs you would like to whitelist. This file says that the IP address 111.111.111.111 (and the other IP addresses whitelisted) are allowed to access /wp-admin/, but all other IP addresses are denied access. The '#' WP Dev Suite Bonus lines are just notes and can be changed to suit your need.
- WordPress Security Scanner Plugin
Install this plugin to help detect any loop holes that may exist in your database and blog files. It provides a report on what needs to be done to prevent attacks.
- Limited Blog Registration Access
If your blog accepts registration, ensure that a user cannot immediately register and receive an administrative access. WP Dev Suite Review To change this, go to your Settings option in the WordPress dashboard, select General. Then change the New User Default Role to Contributor. This can easily be changed as the need arise. User privileges can also be assigned using the Role-Manager plugin.
- Change Your Login Name
The default WordPress username is admin and hackers will always try to infiltrate using this default. So make it harder for them by changing it.
In your WordPress dashboard, go to Users and set up a new user account. Give this new user administrator role. WP Dev Suite Bonus Log out and log in again with the new user account.
Go to Users again. This time, check the box beside admin and press Delete. When it asks for deletion confirmation, select the "Attribute all posts and links to:" and select your new username from the dropdown bar. WP Dev Suite Review This will transfer all the posts to your new user account. Press Confirm Deletion