How To Secure a WordPress Site

Is it worth the time, energy, and budget to defend your WordPress site from potential hacks? And does the size of your website and the nature of your business impact your likelihood of getting hacked?

These are all fair questions to ask, and the answer might surprise you: regardless of what you do with WordPress and how big your operation is, your site is a worthy target for malicious hackers. Let’s peel back the layers of why even the smallest sites require security solutions, then discuss the specific steps you can take to start securing your WordPress website.

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Malicious Hacker Psychology: Why Your Website is a Target

Why would someone hack a WordPress website?

Answering this question starts with understanding the popularity of WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS). Specifically, according to W3Techs, WordPress is used by 60% of websites whose content management systems (CMSes) we know, or 42.8% of all websites. That’s significant!

But what’s perhaps most shocking is that it doesn’t matter if your website is a big or small player in the world of WordPress. Even small sites can be useful to hackers because there are multiple ways they can use them for profit.

For example, hackers can hack and use small sites to:

• Launch DDoS attacks on others
• Inject ads and SEO spam
• Mine cryptocurrency
• Host illegal content
• Steal user data, like email addresses

For all these reasons and more, it’s essential to be proactive when it comes to WordPress security, since reactive measures once a site is compromised come at a significantly higher level of effort and cost.

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The Cost of Insecurity: Business and Brand Consequences

What happens if your WordPress site isn’t secure?

The greatest harm in ignoring WordPress security best practices is the critical business risk that comes in the form of potential reputational damage and related financial damages to your brand.

This can include:

• Legal liabilities associated with a data breach, such as hackers gaining access to sensitive information and payment details
• Redirecting income generated by your site
• SEO damage, which manifests as plummeting search rankings, loss of organic traffic, and potential penalties from search engines. And in severe cases, Google may completely de-index your site, making it invisible in search results and devastating your online presence
• Employee harm, for example, from phishing attacks

The most damaging long-term consequence is the loss of customer trust, especially if visitors discover your site has been compromised before you address it or communicate transparently. Once trust is broken, it can take years to rebuild, and many customers may never return.

Tangentially, the impact extends beyond your own reputation. Securing your WordPress site also helps strengthen the overall WordPress ecosystem. When site owners take security seriously, it reduces the spread of malware, phishing, and other threats across the community.

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What If Your WordPress Site Is Already Hacked?

Before implementing the steps below, it’s important to understand one key point: installing a security plugin alone will not automatically clean or fix a hacked site.

If your WordPress site is already compromised, attackers may have injected malicious code, created hidden admin users, modified core files, or established backdoors that persist even after basic security measures are added. While tools like Wordfence can detect malicious activity and help prevent further damage, proper remediation is a must.

If you suspect your site has been hacked, your immediate priorities should be to:

• Put the site into maintenance mode (if possible) to limit further harm
• Scan the site for malware and unauthorized changes
• Remove malicious code and restore clean files from known-good backups
• Reset passwords and review user accounts for unauthorized access

For site owners who aren’t comfortable handling cleanup themselves (or who need to ensure nothing is missed), professional remediation is often the safest option. Wordfence Care (support during business hours) and Wordfence Response (1-hour response time) include expert-led cleanup services to fully remove malware, close security gaps, and help restore your site safely before layering on long-term protection.

Once your site is clean, the security best practices outlined below help prevent reinfection and future attacks.

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Securing a WordPress Website: What to Do

Having no or insufficient security measures is the top WordPress security mistake (more on that later). A layered defense is essential because there are so many potential attack vectors that a malicious actor could exploit to gain access.

With this in mind, here’s a brief list of what to do to proactively protect your site besides installing a comprehensive security plugin like Wordfence:

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Choose the Right Web Host

Look for a hosting provider that prioritizes and supports WordPress security best practices. The best-case scenario is to invest in a dedicated instance or server, or to isolate sites on shared hosting.

Also, make sure to install an SSL certificate to enforce HTTPS, which encrypts data between your site and its visitors so sensitive information like logins or contact form submissions can’t be intercepted. HTTPS also signals trust to browsers and is an important SEO ranking signal for search engines like Google.

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Be Diligent With Server Administration

Take the extra steps to protect your most important files and structures. To do this, make sure to use an encrypted connection when communicating with your server or a VPN when connecting via a public network.

Moreover, secure the access to wp-config.php (and copies). This file contains your database credentials and security keys — if compromised, attackers gain direct access to your WordPress database and can take complete control of your site. Also protect backups, log files, test files, temporary files, and any other PHP applications associated with your web server.

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Operate in a Secure Work Environment

Even outside of communicating with your server, use a VPN to protect your internet connection, whether you’re at home or using public wifi. Additionally, take care when downloading new software to your computer or mobile devices, and verify the source before installation. Only download software from official websites or trusted repositories, check for HTTPS connections, read user reviews, and verify digital signatures when available.

Using a free malware scanner can also help you stay secure. Arm yourself with knowledge and learn about the major signs of phishing, spear phishing, and social engineering attacks to prevent your WordPress site from being hacked through compromised credentials.

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Take Steps to Detect Attacks Early

Make sure you’re using activity logging and manually review your website pages as both a logged-in admin user and a logged-out website viewer. In addition to setting up a security plugin with threat alerts, configure tools like Google Search Console to receive email alerts for any issues that prevent indexing.

On a related note, regularly search for your website and its pages in Google to ensure they’re coming up as expected. Also, make use of tools like a source code scanner and website monitoring service to scan for site integrity issues (including uptime) and unintended site changes (such as using a visual change detector). Unexplained spikes in site traffic can also be warning signs of malicious actors.

For a deeper look into the best way to secure your WordPress site, check our detailed post on the most important layers of security for a WordPress website, follow along with each one, and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with implementing the necessary security measures to secure your WordPress website from malicious hackers and the worst attacks.

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Securing a WordPress Website: What Not to Do

Now, let’s consider WordPress security from the opposite perspective — what not to do.

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Not Using a WordPress Security Solution

If your budget is limited, start with a free version, like Wordfence Free. Wordfence Free blocks around 95% of known threats out of the box. It includes all the necessary features to strengthen your WordPress website’s security:

• Malware scanning
• Brute force login protection
• Protection against hacker recon techniques
• The best web application firewall for WordPress
• Rate-based throttling and blocking
• 2FA
• Password auditing

Wordfence Premium expands upon this, offering additional advanced blocking techniques like country blocking, a 30-day Audit Log, and real-time protection with instantly available malware signatures and firewall rules as soon as we release them (the Free version gets them 30 days post-release).

Depending on the nature of your website and the size of your business, you may benefit from access to our team of threat intelligence experts for help with configuration, optimization, and, in a worst-case scenario (where your website is hacked), remediation. In these situations, Wordfence Care and Response are available to assist.

On a related note, make sure that you’re executing regular backups of your WordPress site and files (including the database). Some web hosts offer this, but you should ideally use more than one solution and have multiple places where you can access up-to-date backup files.

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Using a WordPress Security Plugin That Provides Incomplete Protection

Not all free WordPress security plugin versions are made the same — neither are the paid solutions. Dig deeper into the details by checking out our comparisons between Wordfence and other WordPress security plugins:

• Wordfence vs. Sucuri
• Wordfence vs. MalCare
• Wordfence vs. Solid Security (formerly iThemes Security)
• Wordfence vs. All in One Security (AIOS)

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Not Following WordPress Plugin Security Best Practices

Some of the major offenders include:

• Using more plugins than necessary, or not deleting unused plugins
• Using plugins that aren’t frequently updated
• Not keeping plugins (and other WordPress software) regularly updated.

Ideally, your WordPress website should use as few plugins as necessary to support the essential functions. This is because the more plugins you install, the more potential attack vectors malicious actors can exploit. The data backs that up — our 2024 Annual WordPress Security Report found that plugin vulnerabilities made up 96% of the total threats to WordPress security that year (compared to themes and the core software).

Beyond that, not all plugins are created equal. Some are well-maintained, and their creators stay on top of making security patches as soon as they’re made aware of potential vulnerabilities, while others are rarely maintained or are abandoned. With all else equal, look for plugins that are updated on a regular basis; those with a “last updated” gap of many months or even years make for potential security threats.

To help secure the WordPress ecosystem as a whole and proactively defend against WordPress vulnerabilities, Wordfence operates a Bug Bounty Program that rewards contributors for the responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities in the core software, themes, and, of course, plugins.

Besides picking well-supported plugins and limiting the number of plugins on your site, another critical WordPress security setup step is using WordPress security plugins that help protect against zero-day vulnerabilities. From there, the next most important thing is to make sure that you keep all WordPress files up-to-date, including plugins, themes, and the WordPress core software version.

Some web hosts can help you keep these files updated automatically within their settings; you can also outsource this work to WordPress experts if you’re worried that doing the updates yourself might break your site.

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Not Implementing Multiple Login Security Measures

Ideal login security encapsulates several connected ideas and tools: the principle of least privilege, using unique passwords across tools, and strengthening the login experience itself.

The principle of least privilege involves limiting the users who have access to your WordPress admin account. Not all users require it, and the more users that do, the more additional and unnecessary entry points for attackers.

Also, remember to use unique passwords across your tools. Using unique passwords is perhaps most important for admin users, but it represents a best practice for all users to reduce the chance of malicious actors gaining access to any of your accounts.

To make this easier in practice and to enforce the use of strong passwords, use a password manager. Also, make sure to use a strong password (unique from your WordPress admin credentials) for your WordPress database user.

But remember: Limiting access and unique passwords will only take you so far. To fully protect your WordPress login, layer additional security measures on top. Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) so users must verify their identity with a second device or method (like a mobile authenticator app) in addition to their password.

Also, add IP and country blocking to limit access to your admin area from high-risk regions or specific IP addresses. Use rate limiting to control how many login attempts can be made within a set timeframe, stopping brute-force attacks by blocking repeated failed attempts.

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Secure Your WordPress Site With Wordfence

Knowledge is power, and the first step to securing your WordPress site is understanding why it needs protection, no matter its size or whether it’s for personal or business use. Our WordPress Security Essentials course is a quick way to learn the fundamentals and the most important steps you can take to defend your site, all in under 20 minutes.

Once you understand the basics, put them into practice with a comprehensive solution like Wordfence. Wordfence Free provides the essential security features every site needs as a baseline, including firewall protection and rate limiting. Wordfence Premium builds on this with real-time protection via the real-time IP blocklist, country blocking, a detailed 30-day audit log, and advanced site reputation checks — such as verifying whether a site appears on domain blocklists, is being spamvertised, or is generating spam. And if you need hands-on assistance, our Wordfence Care (support within business hours) and Response (1-hour response time) services offer expert support and rapid intervention.

Even with a strong foundation, your work isn’t done. Follow our in-depth WordPress security checklist and review common security mistakes to strengthen your defenses further. After all, WordPress is a popular CMS, and new threats emerge regularly, so staying vigilant by monitoring your site and watching for unexpected changes will add another proactive layer of security to your website.

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Securing a WordPress Site: FAQs

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What Is the Best Way to Secure a WordPress Site?

The best way to secure your WordPress site involves multiple layers of protection: install a comprehensive security plugin like Wordfence, keep WordPress core, plugins, and themes updated, use strong passwords with two-factor authentication, choose secure hosting, implement SSL certificates, limit login attempts, and regularly back up your site. No single measure is enough — WordPress security requires a multi-faceted approach.

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How Do You Secure a WordPress Website From Hackers?

To secure your WordPress website from malicious hackers, start with a WordPress security plugin, like Wordfence, that includes malware scanning, a web application firewall, and brute-force protection.

Moreover, implement two-factor authentication, use the principle of least privilege for user access, keep all software updated, choose a secure web host with SSL certificates, and monitor your site regularly for suspicious activity. Proactive security measures are far more effective than reactive responses.

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What Are the Most Important WordPress Security Settings?

The most important WordPress security settings include enabling two-factor authentication, implementing strong password requirements, limiting login attempts to prevent brute-force attacks, using country and IP blocking to restrict access, enabling SSL/HTTPS, setting proper file permissions, disabling file editing from the WordPress dashboard, and configuring automatic updates for security patches.

If you are managing multiple websites, a security plugin like Wordfence can help manage many of these settings from a central dashboard, like Wordfence Central. 

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Do You Need a WordPress Security Plugin if You Have Secure Hosting?

Yes, you need a WordPress security plugin even with secure hosting. While managed WordPress hosting providers offer server-level security, they cannot protect against application-level threats like vulnerable plugins, brute-force attacks, malware infections, or zero-day exploits.

A dedicated security plugin like Wordfence provides essential features like malware scanning, web application firewall protection, login security, and real-time threat detection that hosting alone cannot deliver.

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How Often Should You Update WordPress Plugins for Security?

You should update WordPress plugins as soon as security updates become available. Many plugin vulnerabilities are exploited within days of being discovered.

Enable automatic updates for minor security patches when possible, and check for updates at least weekly. Remove any plugins that haven’t been updated in over a year or are no longer actively maintained, as these represent significant security risks to your WordPress site.