Once known as a humble blogging platform, WordPress has exploded into the world’s most popular content management system. With plug-ins, themes and functionality to do just about anything, it’s no surprise that more webmasters use WordPress than any other solution – by some estimates, one in three websites around the world now use it. Unfortunately, such popularity and versatility has its drawbacks. Perhaps the biggest one relates to security issues and the propensity for hackers and would-be thieves to target the content management system’s vulnerabilities. Security should always be a top priority for any website, but that is especially the case with WordPress. Today, we’ll talk about some ways in which you can improve overall WordPress security starting now.

Carefully Optimize Credentials

The single biggest threat to your WordPress website lurks within your own mind: your login credentials. All too many people make the mistake of using simplistic user names and passwords for their WordPress logins. This can make you extremely vulnerable to potential attacks. It is crucial that you select a WordPress user name that is not associated with your website or brand in any capacity. Additionally, the selection of a strong password is absolutely essential. Either a combination of random words or a string of upper case, lower case, and numerical characters can be a strong bulwark against potential break-ins on your website.

Restrict Access

It can be all too easy to provide bloggers and other assistants with access to your website. After all, the more contributors you have, the easier it can be to be pinging your website with fresh content. Unfortunately, user access is a huge security flaw and can be one of the biggest contributors to a compromised site. While most people are trustworthy, the primary issue with doing this relates to a different concern: the more logins that exist, the more opportunities that exist for hackers to break into the website. Additionally, each user’s personal online activities make the website vulnerable via malware and other issues that may be present on each user’s computer.

Update Your Plug-ins

All too many WordPress websites are horribly out-of-date around the web, which is a major security flaw. More would-be hackers gain access through security vulnerabilities in outdated versions of WordPress and its plug-ins than through any other method. Once a plug-in or version of WordPress has been updated, patch notes and bugs are published. People use these vulnerabilities to create exploits that allow for backdoor access to the website and many of its components. You can avoid this fate by simply updating all of your plug-ins – as well as the core WordPress installation – any time that there is an update available via the control panel.

There are hundreds of security flaws and vulnerabilities that potentially exist with any website or blog. The key is to minimize as many of them as possible. By being smart about who you give credentials to, avoiding the use of simplistic passwords and user names, and pinging your website with updates whenever they are available, you can minimize three of the biggest security risks facing WordPress websites.