How to Protect Your WordPress Site from Malware?
Everybody knows that security is one of the principal things in a website, but seems to take no heed to that. Nevertheless, not only the business sites but personal blogs also have to pay attention to the security issues. Malware (malicious software) always be on top of that. No one wants their site to be attacked, destroyed, or leak user information. Detect all the malware or reduce the number of security gaps will save your WordPress site. Let’s see how.
What is Malware?
Malware stands for malicious software. As an IT specialized terminology, malware means any software intentionally designed to damage a computer system, network, server, including website, and harm computer users. It is implanted or introduced in some way into the object. Malware usually is in the form of executable code, script, or other forms of data.
We also might know it in the name of virus, worm, trojan, ransomware, spyware, adware, and so on. It definitely bad when malware infects your website. In most cases, malware either destroy the website or steal its user information.
Why is Your WordPress Site Infected with Malware?
Something can create a favorable situation for hackers to inject malware into your WordPress website. The following are some of them.
Use Themes or Plugins from Untrusted Sources
Most of the untrusted technology products, which are from the unverified source, have backdoors created by the hackers, then they can control your site from these backdoors. So, don’t try anything has no clear origin to keep your site safe.
If you tend to use a nulled WordPress theme, stop doing that. Don’t let it harm your site. One more tip for you, if you are looking for a trusted WordPress theme, follow this instruction to make sure that the WordPress theme does not include any malware.
Do not Update WordPress, Themes, and Plugins
Technology turns every day. Hackers improve their skills and ruses all the time. As a result, something may be safe today, but tomorrow. It’s right for all the technological products, including theme, plugin, website, computer, application, even WordPress.
That’s why reputable providers always try to fix and eliminate security bugs in the new version having a higher security level. Why do you not follow your providers to protect your WordPress site?
Use Simple Username and Passwords
Have you heard about Brute Force Attack? Hacker uses software to guess your passwords or PIN codes to gain access to your website and install malware.
If you use simple passwords, it is pretty easy to guess, isn’t it? Our advice is that you should not set the admin account in the name “admin” as well as use any simple passwords for your root accounts.
Do not Install any Security Plugin
There are many signs to make suspicion that malware is inspecting your website. It might be:
- Slower loading speed in both frontend and backend;
- Size of the database is increased abnormally. Such a weird situation when there are a few contents but heavy database;
- Automatic redirect to unknown websites.
Even when they happen on your site, you may not be sure that malware caused it. In addition, malware sometimes exists on your site without any obvious sign. So, you need a tool to detect and notify you of malware injection. Use a WordPress security plugin is a good choice to help you do that.
How to Detect and Scan Malware in WordPress?
There are dozens of WordPress security plugin which can help you detect and scan malware. Install one of them, do some simple clicks, then you will know if your website has malware.
Wordfence Security - Firewall & Malware Scan
Wordfence Security is a free WordPress plugin and supported totally by a large group specializing in WordPress security. Wordfence provides a bunch of advanced features that make it become the most comprehensive security solution for WordPress. It’s extremely powerful with the ability to automatically scan all the files on your site and theme as well, detect, and block the malware, even the suspicious one. Any security issue will be alerted quickly.
Along with those things, using Wordfence brings you pretty much additional advantages which are:
- Wordfence likely is a protective shield for your website. It automatically blocks all the common attackers and spammers or someone in the blacklist (by advanced IP testing and domain testing on WHO IS);
- Wordfence provides two-factor authentication with a confirmation code via phone (the same with using Google account);
- Force user use complex passwords;
- Custom the limitation of bots, which collect your website information, avoiding hits from the botnet;
- Track every visitor in real-time and check the host’s hard drive to avoid DDoS attacks;
- Use website caching technology from Falcon Engine that speeds up your website loading 50 times. At the same time, it’s not necessary to use any other plugin for the cache.
Sucuri Security – Auditing, Malware Scanner and Security Hardening
Sucuri Security is a kind of freemium WordPress plugin. However, you may find almost essential features in the free version:
- File integrity monitoring
- Malware scanning
- Blacklist monitoring
- Check and enhance the security
- Notice of post-hack security procedures
In the worst case, if someone hacked or attacked your website, Sucuri Security offers you a feature to recover your website. At the same time, users will immediately receive a notification about the website situation to take action promptly. It is an extra point because no software has the perfect attack resistance.
6Scan Security
6Scan Security is one of the most common WordPress security plugins because of its convenience and usefulness. It can scan all the files on your website, find the security errors, and show them all in order from high to low severity. Not only does it tell us your web has a security hole but 6Scan also tells us where it is and how to fix.
You can either fix the vulnerabilities manually follows 6Scan’s instruction or use its Auto Fix feature. However, the Auto Fix feature is available in the paid version only.
Manual Fix Instruction from 6Scan
BulletProof Security
BulletProof Security is another option for you to protect your WordPress website from malware. The developer community claimed that this plugin secures 70,000 websites from hackers in the last seven years.
It is extremely easy to install and run this plugin on your site. You can also customize many different security settings. But, I like the maintenance mode of BulletProof Security most. This mode keeps your website be secure even when you update or maintain the backend or frontend.
iThemes Security (Formerly Better WP Security)
iThemes Security will be an ideal choice if you use its pro version. The free version comes with some basic and useful features but does not satisfy my demand. Most of the features from the free version are around user account issues. Moreover, the iThemes Security Pro can automatically block the user who has too many invalid login attempts. It is a really good way to prevent Brute Force Attack.
This plugin helps you to fix the vulnerabilities in a few seconds, hide the common WordPress security holes, and send a notification to you whenever your website has an issue.
Final Words
Although detecting malware is not an easy task, there are many plugins to help you and ways to prevent it efficiently. As you know, vigilance and prevenance are the best. So, having equipped knowledge and tools about security for your WordPress is always the priority.
Anyway, I hope that the above tips and tools can support you in protecting your site. In case you are confused about something, let us know.