One of the most important thing when you are selling is to make your WordPress ecommerce secure. The steps to secure the website are very simple, but they can help you prevent the biggest calamities with respect to your website. The following are the best security measures that you can take to secure your website.

Starting with the basic thing – Strong Username and Password.

WordPress dashboard is password protected. So, the first and very basic step of security we suggest is a strong username and password.

A strong username – We highly suggest you to avoid using username like “admin”. Instead you should opt for some smart username that cannot be guessed. Or you can even use a pseudoname. Along with a secure password, the user name also holds some importance for your website’s security concerns.

Password – You must have heard enough about the password. And I’m going to tell you the same. Go for a password that is strong and a combination of alphabets, numbers and special symbols. Also changing the password after a certain duration is recommended.

These are the basic security steps that may help prevent some of the most dangerous security threats. So, be careful while you set the username and password, they hold a strong ground.

Protecting wp.config file of WordPress

The wp.config file in your WordPress install is the file that contains most sensitive information. So we must avoid any chance that an external entity gets access to it. To protect your wp.config file the following are the steps.

1. Changing the default database prefix in the wp-config.php will work if someone tries to mess with your database

   $table_prefix  = 'wp_';

   and you should replace it with some random string that cannot be easily guessed

   $table_prefix  = 'pmlst_';

2. Move your wp-config.php out of the folder.
3. Manage the file permissions to ensure that only you can access your website through the webserver can access it and only using cpanel or ftp.
4. Disable the editing of the theme and plugin files. Just add this line to the end of your file

   define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT',true);limit access to your wp admin dashboard

There are various website security services that ensures the security of your website by blocking the unknown ip addresses. One of the best of them is Securi. Such security services protect unauthorized access to your website by preventing unknown addresses to the login.

How to choose a hosting service for your WordPress website?

Choose your host wisely. The hosting service you choose should be reliable enough to trust it with your website data. If you have doubts, just don’t go for it.

Hosting providers let you choose from different plans. If you think your website data is precious and don’t want it to be stolen, go for the plan that provides best security. However, there are different options and you can choose the one that complements your requirements.

Avoiding unwanted access using WP limit login and brute force avoidance

This also, is one of the common protection technique. When someone is attempting to login again and again with different password, it may be a brute force attack. So, you can limit the login attempts you allow for

You can search for the bruteforce prevention plugins on the internet. We reccommend the following .

BruteProtect – Is an efficient plugin that is crafted to save your website from bruteforce attact. A simple and straightforward plugin.

Wordfence security – Along with login security, this plugin is designed to provide you many other security services like firewall security, blocking and malware scanning, etc.

Login Security Solutions – This plugin is designed to provide you overall login security services that ensures that malicious logins are blocked and reported.

Regular backups for securing your website data

Regular backups is a good habit you must develop when maintaining a website. There are some themes and specially designed premium plugins that will auto backup your precious data at a fixed interval. You can use these facilities to regularly create the backup of the data.

Backup will be serve as a life-saver during website crash. If your website gets disturbed, or worse, destroyed by any factor, at least you’ll have the data of your website secure to rebuild your website.

Use FTP for Secure file transfer with WordPress website

For file transfers, always use SFTP instead of FTP. Ensure that your host provides it. So, before you go for a host ensure that it provides secure service and also allows SFTP transfers.

SFTP is the secure FTP that uses SSH for secure file transfer to and fro your WordPress website and the server.

Only use trusted plugins and themes for your WordPress website

There’s innumerable themes and plugins available for your WordPress website. Choose theme wisely. When buying premium themes or plugin make sure that you buy from the providers who are confident about the theme’s security. When you go for the free stuffs, you need to be more careful. Not that free themes and plugins are prone to security threats. But there’s no harm in conducting a little research to know what the people of the community think about it.

Don’t mind me exaggerating this(if I am), but the most dangerous decision you’ll ever take is to use a nulled theme. By doing so, you are potentially risking your website data and security at once. Read this article on why you should avoid using the null themes.

Looking for safe and premium themes. Click here to browse the theme of your choice.

Protecting WordPress with htaccess

.htaccess is a hidden file that is vital to the security of your website. Therefore, protecting your .htaccess file is a very important step when you’re setting up the security of your eccomerce website.

Refer this document to find out how you can secure your .htaccess file.

However, the internet has limitless scope and it is seemingly impossible to completely secure your website. Following these steps will surely protect you from some harm, but nothing on the internet can be completely safe. The hackers constantly develop newer techniques and methods to steal people’s data and harm others. But we can take our measures to prevent this.