Website hacking is the biggest threat or nightmare that can happen to any business website in this present era. The era of file cabinets, as well as the essential paper documents, is now past. Nowadays, important documents are mostly stored as well as shared online.
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Due to this reason, the amount of cybercrime has increased to a huge extent, and mostly the website hacking. Hacking a website costs a lot of money and hampers the growth of any business or organization to a huge extent.
Additionally, the websites that are not completely protected are more vulnerable to hacking. WordPress is one of the most preferable websites for website owners and most of the hackers as well.
A lot of WordPress sites which the small business owners run have the concept that hackers don’t have any interest in their business. This makes websites an easy target for hackers.
There are a few reasons due to which the WordPress sites get hacked, it is quite easy and vulnerable to the hackers who want to gain experience in hacking.
Another significant reason for which the WordPress sites are hacked, the hackers want to misuse the resources available on the website. Last but not least, a lot of essential data is found in the WordPress sites and mostly financial information.
Here are some of the reasons behind the hacking of WordPress websites and the ways of preventing it.
Top Reasons Why WordPress Sites Get Hacked
Weak password usage
Passwords are necessary to keep the websites safe, and these are the key to keep the WordPress site working properly. Always make sure that your website has a strong and unique password for every account since it provides every hacker full access to the websites.
The usage of weak passwords is one of the major reasons for WordPress sites get hacked. WordPress admin account, FTP accounts, MySQL database is used for WordPress sites, email accounts that are used for hosting accounts require a strong password.
Providing a weak password can make the accounts vulnerable to threats and hacks thus making it easy for the hackers to hack the accounts.
These threats can be easily avoided by opting for strong passwords such as using the alphabets, characters and numerical in the passwords will make it strong. Also, make sure to change it with time since keeping the same password for long makes websites easy to hack.
Skipping on WordPress updates
There are many reasons for not updating the WordPress sites and most of the website owners who remain scared of updating the websites due to a lot of unforeseen threats.
Not updating the websites can lead to the WordPress sites get hacked which can hamper the working of any organization or business.
It is necessary to keep in mind that the updates help in fixing the bugs as well as the problem with security options. Skipping on the website updates eventually makes the websites vulnerable.
In case you feel that your website can crash when updating, then you can keep a complete backup before opting for updating. This process will help you in getting back all the previous sessions in case you lose the data.
Unsafe access to the WordPress admin area
By using the WordPress admin area, you can surely do various work as well as tasks on the website. Admin area is also considered as one of the most vulnerable areas of any website which is attacked by hackers.
Due to this reason, it is necessary to keep the admin area safe which will prevent it from the attack of the hackers. Ignoring the security of the WordPress admin area can cause WordPress sites to get hacked. It is not a tough task for hackers to attack any area which doesn’t have proper protection.
Opting for effective preventive measures such as incorporating authentication layers for the admin directory of the website helps in offering good protection to the WordPress admin area.
Using passwords for the admin area is the best solution for keeping the area protected. In case you use a multi-user WordPress site, then make sure that you use strong passwords for every website.
Wrong file permissions
File permission is necessary for the web servers to regulate the file access on the website. In case the file permission becomes incorrect, then it can become easy for hackers to make changes in the files.
Therefore, if you don’t want your WordPress sites to get hacked then make sure that all the files are using 644 values and 755 for file permission. This will help in preventing the attack of hackers.
Unsafe web hosting
WordPress sites are mostly hosted on web servers just like all the other websites. Few hosting companies are there who do not effectively protect the hosting platform. Due to this reason, every single website becomes extremely vulnerable to hacking.
Using the good website hosting provider for the websites promises safety to the websites for hosting it on any safe platform. Effectively securing the servers can prevent threatening attacks on WordPress sites.
Ignoring the plugins and theme updates
It is necessary to update all the themes and plugins like the actual WordPress software. This is important since utilizing any older plugins and themes that make your websites vulnerable to threats and attacks by hackers.
It is common to detect improper securities and flaws as well as bugs in the WordPress themes and plugins. Although the problems can be fixed by the themes and the plugin authors. But skipping on the updates then you won’t be able to increase the security of the websites.
Download Bugs-free WordPress themes from https://www.sktthemes.org/themes/
Ignoring the changing of WordPress Table prefix
A lot of WordPress experts suggest changing the present table prefix of WordPress. This platform uses wp_ as the prefix for making a table in the database. While installing you can also you will also get a suitable option for changing the prefix.
It is better using any prefix which is tough and complicated. This will make it hard for hackers to predict and assume the table names of the WordPress database.
Therefore, these are some of the reasons for hacking WordPress websites, and the ways of preventing further website hacking in the future.
Sonl Sinha is a passionate writer as well as WordPress and WooCommerce rockstar who loves to share insights on various topics through his engaging blog posts. He runs a successful website design and digital marketing company. With 15+ years of experience in WordPress theme development, he strives to inform and inspire readers with his thought-provoking content. He helps thousands of small and medium businesses and startups create a unique online presence. Follow Sonl Sinha for your regular dose of knowledge and inspiration.
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