WordPress Security Tools

April 12th, 2011 by jim

An important part of any blog, especially a commercial blog, are the WordPress Security Tools that we choose. Many solid basic security tools are available as WordPress Plugins. One that is very popular and quite strong is BulletProof Security, a free plugin available from the WordPress Plugin Directory.

The BulletProof Security plugin protects your website from XSS & SQL Injection hacking attempts, and; Base64_encode code injection is blocked, one-click .htaccess security file protection, protection of wp-config.php, php.ini, php5.ini, install.php and readme.html with .htaccess security protection. One-click website under maintenance (HTTP 503). WP META Generator tag removed, WP version hidden, ensure WordPress DB errors are off, file and folder permissions check, system info display (PHP, MySQL, OS, Memory Usage, IP, Max file sizes, etc.). File editing, file uploading and file downloading from within the WP Dashboard. Quite a package by itself, but there is more than that. Be sure to check it out. It’s free, quite solid, and easy to install and maintain.

A second plugin in the security line up should include Limit Login Attempts. Also a free plugin available at the WordPress Plugin Directory, this plugin helps guard against “brute force” attacks against your blog (trying repeated logins with varying passwords usually by robot tools). Again, easilly installed and managed, this plugin should be added to keep your blog safer.

WordPress will likely always be a target for hacking and michief, and we can never be completely safe. Believe me, I have been hacked many times in the past few years. We can minimize this though by keeping our blogs up to date with the latest versions of plugins and the central WP packages as they come out, and by running some basic security plugins like those mentioned above.

At the end of the day though, plan on getting hacked, and always have your blogs backed up and ready to re-install to minimize downtime.