While large-scale website hacking events often grab national news headlines, the truth is that even smaller sites are targets for hackers, malware, and data breaches — and a single incident can disrupt operations, damage your reputation, and cost a significant amount of time, money, and other resources.

The Most Common Types of WordPress Attacks

• Brute Force Attack — A trial-and-error attempt to guess your log-in credentials
• SQL Injection (SQLi) Attack — When someone sneaks malicious commands into your site’s database queries so they can read, change, or even delete the data behind the site
• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attack — When a hacker plants harmful code — usually JavaScript — into your website so that it runs inside other people’s browsers
• Malware — Malicious software that is installed to steal data or gain unauthorized access
• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack — When a huge number of computers flood your site with so much traffic that it slows down or crashes

So How Can You Protect Your WordPress Site?

By creating and enforcing a proactive security plan — spanning everything from regular updates and backups to malware scans and access controls — you can protect your site, your users, and your team’s collective peace of mind.

1. Ensure Hosting & Server Security

Starting at square one, you’ll want to choose a reputable hosting service that offers built-in firewalls, malware scanning, and automatic backups. Beyond that, your in-house IT team will need to:

• Keep your PHP – the programming language behind WordPress – and server software updated to the latest (aka most stable) versions to fix security holes and keep performance speedy.
• Use SSL/HTTPS everywhere, forcing SSL both in WordPress and on your server. This is signified by the “padlock” you see in a browser search bar, and it encrypts data to keep it moving safely between your site and your users so hackers can’t access or tamper with it.
• Limit server access using secure SSH/SFTP protocols so log-in details and files can’t be intercepted.

2. Perform Timely Core, Theme & Plugin Updates

Following the same rule of thumb as you would with any enterprise software installation, you should only install the WP core, themes, and plugins from trusted sources like WordPress.org and reputable external web development teams. And keep in mind that most successful WordPress hacks occur because of outdated plugins or themes, so you’ll want to keep them current to protect against known vulnerabilities.

RECOMMENDED AUDIT & UPDATE FREQUENCY

3. Carefully Manage User Accounts & Passwords

Every new user account introduces a window of risk into your site – so grant only the appropriate number of roles needed, and assign the minimum level of access necessary for each.

Here are the most common WP roles:

Role: Administrator
What They Do: Full control of the site
Key Capabilities:

– Add, edit, and delete any content
– Install, update, or remove plugins & themes
– Manage users (add/remove roles, change passwords)
– Access all WordPress settings

Who Needs It? Site owners, lead developers, or senior staff who manage everything.

Role: Editor
What They Do: Manage and publish content created by themselves and others.
Key Capabilities:

– Publish, edit, and delete posts & pages
– Moderate comments
– Manage categories, tags & links

Who Needs It? Content managers, marketing leads, or communications staff who oversee all site content but don’t need to touch plugins, themes, or site settings.

Role: Author
What They Do: Create and manage their own content.
Key Capabilities:

– Write, edit & publish their own posts
– Upload media for their own posts
– Limitations: Cannot edit or delete others’ posts; cannot manage plugins or settings

Who Needs It? Regular contributors who should control only their own content.

Role: Contributor
What They Do: Write posts but cannot publish them.
Key Capabilities:

– Draft & edit their own posts
– Submit posts for review by an Editor or Administrator
– Limitations: Cannot upload media or publish posts

Who Needs It? Guest writers or junior contributors whose work needs approval.

Role: Subscriber
What They Do: Mostly read and manage their profile.
Key Capabilities:

– Log in
– View protected content (if applicable)
– Comment (if allowed)
– Manage their own profile settings

Who Needs It? Registered site users, customers, or members who don’t need back-end access.

Note: You can also create custom roles with modified permissions for specific needs and use cases (e.g., you can create a “Shop Manager” in WooCommerce for team members who need to run an ecommerce shop day to day but not touch the site’s code or plugins)

You’ll want to enforce Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for admins and strong, unique passwords for all other users. Remember to regularly review and remove old or inactive user accounts.

4. Don’t Overlook Your Dashboard

Good-sense security measures include “hiding” the admin login page for your WordPress CMS with a custom URL slug (e.g., /custom-login instead of /wp-login.php) and periodically updating your admin username (never using “admin” in the name).

You’ll also want to restrict the number of login attempts allowed using a plugin like Limit Login Attempts Reloaded – and be sure to track all log-in attempts to flag suspicious behavior.

5. Amp Up Firewall & Malware Protection

In addition to installing a WordPress security plugin like Wordfence, Solid Security, or Sucuri and enabling a Web Application Firewall (WAF) like AIOS, NinjaFirewall, or BBQ to block malicious traffic, you’ll want to run daily malware scans or implement real-time monitoring. This is especially important for large-scale organization sites, ecommerce stores, or sites handling sensitive customer data.

6. Fine-Tune Uptime & Performance Monitoring

Instead of waiting for users or GA4 to report performance issues, you’ll want to establish proactive monitoring measures that allow you to address UX bottlenecks, identify security vulnerabilities, and correct a broken site or page immediately. Best practices include:

• Using an uptime monitoring tool like UptimeRobot, Pingdom, or your host’s monitoring solution
• Enabling server resource monitoring for CPU, memory, and disk usage
• Optimizing caching and image compression to reduce server load
• Reviewing error logs for recurring issues

7. Increase Database & File Security

Enhancing database and file security in WordPress is a fundamental aspect of protecting your website, your users, and their sensitive information from the myriad of threats that exist. To that end, your in-house dev team will want to:

• Change the default WordPress table prefix from wp_ to something less “guessable”. Hackers often target this prefix when attempting SQLi injection attacks. By changing the prefix, you add a layer of protection to your database tables and website.
• Secure the critical wp-config.php file of your WP installation, moving it one level above the root, if possible. Why it matters: This file contains sensitive data like your database name, username, password, and security keys. If a hacker breaks into it, your entire website will be jeopardized.
• Set proper file and directory permissions (typically 644 for files and 755 for directories) to define which users can read, write, and execute them.

Disable file editing in the WordPress dashboard (define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);). This security measure not only makes it harder for hackers to inject malware or backdoor scripts into your theme and plugin files via your dashboard, but it also prevents your admins from accidentally making bad code changes that could crash your site.

8. Keep a Close Eye on Alerts

In addition to subscribing to WordPress security advisories, it’s important to set up Google Search Console and Analytics to monitor unexpected traffic spikes and enable email/SMS alerts for downtime, failed logins, and plugin vulnerabilities.

9. Run Routine Backups & Recovery Exercises

Set up automated daily backups for both files and databases, and store them offsite (e.g., in cloud storage rather than just with your host) – and test restoring backups monthly as well as after big updates and redesigns to ensure they’re working properly.

10. Perform Other High-Level Maintenance Tasks & Security Audits

Any long-term WordPress security plan includes these routine tasks:

Monthly: Perform a security audit of all users, logs, and errors.

Quarterly: Run a holistic vulnerability scan using a tool like Sucuri or Detectify.

Annually: Revisit and update your formal response plan in the event of a catastrophic event, including who to contact, how to lock down the site, and how to restore operations as quickly as possible.

How Eastern Standard Can Help

Need help creating and implementing a better security plan for your WordPress website? Reach out today.