Security of your website is one of the most important things which you need to consider when choosing web hosting, or putting your website online. A bit glitch in security can cause you loss of traffic, business reputation, and defiantly money. Many small business owners and websites admins do not take their website security seriously because they think that their data is less important for the hackers. In this article, I will share with you that Why WordPress security is important and why you need website security even if you manage a personal blog or small business website on WordPress.
Every day there is a story about the latest hacked websites. Most website owners think it will never happen to them — until it does. According to the some research, Google is blacklisting about 10,000 websites every day because they contain malware.
Here are some statistics collected from different source about hacked websites
1- A website is hacked every 39 seconds (Source: Security magazine)
2- Half of all Cyber-attacks are targeted at small businesses. (Source: cpomagazine.com)
3- 66% of businesses attacked by hackers weren’t confident they could recover. (Source: Fortune)
4- 73% of black hat hackers said traditional firewall and antivirus security is irrelevant or obsolete. (Source: Thycotic.com)
5- Hackers create 300,000 new pieces of malware daily. (Source: McAfee)
6- Up to March 2019, more than 14 billion data records had been lost or stolen. (Source: Breach Level Index)
7- Hackers siphoned off $13.4 million from Cosmos Bank in India. (Source: Hindustan Times)
Why WordPress Security is Important?
1- Loss of visitors, and customers
Will you visit a website that is not secure by default and where your important information can be hacked? Of course, your answer will be no. This is the main reason why you as a WordPress website owner need to understand the importance of your WP security. A user does not like to visit an unsecured website. If you failed to win visitors trust at the first visit to your website, they won’t become your customers any more.
2- Loss of business reputation
Generally, Many personal blog owners and small business owners think that their website is not in danger. So, they don’t spend effort on the security of their website. For the hacker, the size of the website does not matter. As long as you have a website online, hackers don’t differentiate between small or large website. They will try to get access to your website to cause all kinds of problems. The results is not just a loss of money but also the loss of customers and business reputation.
3- Google blacklists any unsecured WordPress site
Google is very clear regarding their visitor’s security. They will never send a visitor to a website that is not secured properly. Google blacklists thousands of websites every day because of low security. If your website got blacklisted by Google, you will have to clean your website and remove the blacklist before google can send any visitors to your site.
It’s important to note that hackers don’t discriminate between websites and don’t choose what sites they attack. Instead, they use programs that crawl the internet and look for unsecured websites to hack and install malware. They can easily attack multiple sites at once. That is why WordPress security is important.
Common Sense Security Practices
There are some common sense security practices that you should be aware of and use before thinking about any other security tools and programs. Below are some of them
- Update your WordPress regularly
- Install antivirus software and configure it to update automatically
- Update all the software programs on your PC
- Scan your PC for malware every month
- Don’t leave your PC unattended
- Don’t give any of your passwords to anyone
- Change your passwords frequently
- Don’t use the same password on multiple websites
- Be careful with how much information you post or share online
- Do not trust all pop-up notifications
- Be aware of phishing emails
- Do not open links or programs from unknown sources
- Do not store your passwords in your PC unless they are encrypted
- Use SSL certificates for all your websites
If you follow the above guidelines to secure your website , you will save yourself a lot of trouble in the future. The above-mentioned items are part of the ongoing security awareness and education
Conclusion
If you want your business WordPress website to run for a long time and generate a profit, you need to invest in some of the best WordPress plugins and security solutions out there.
I hope that by now you have an idea about the importance of website security. If your website is not secured yet, there are many ways to do it. You can do it yourself by reading the article:
How to Secure Your WordPress Website from Hackers .
Or use an external security service such as Astra.