The best tips to improve your WordPress security

If you have a website built with a CMS, especially WordPress, what matters most is the security of the site. In most cases, pages made with WordPress become compromised by hackers and bots. This happens because their main files and plugins are outdated or obsolete. To keep your site away from these attacks, we're going to list three tips to improve your WordPress security.

Before listing the security tips, we recommend regularly logging into the site admin and updating the core and plugins.

Change the default WordPress table prefix

If your database tables (.sql) have the prefix wp_, they could be vulnerable to external attacks. To fix this vulnerability, follow these steps:

• First, access the CPanel of the server where your website is hosted.
• Then click on phpMyAdmin.

• Once in phpMyAdmin, select your WordPress database.
• Then, select all tables and from the dropdown choose 'Replace table prefix'.

• A popup window will open. In 'From' you need to put the current table prefix, and in 'To' the new prefix. That's it!

Keep the wp-admin directory protected

Keeping the wp-admin folder protected by adding an additional layer of security is essential. That way, anyone trying to access the directory will have another barrier to overcome.

We'll teach you two methods:

• From CPanel: Once you log into the panel, click on 'File Manager' and find your website's domain, then right-click on the 'wp-admin' folder. All you have to do is choose the 'Password Protect' option and protect the folder with a password.

• From a plugin: By installing the 'HTTP Auth' extension, you can protect the wp-admin folder from the plugin interface.

Prevent directory browsing

A big security gap is having your WordPress folders and files accessible to the public. For this reason, we'll show you a simple test to verify if your directories are protected or unprotected.

• First, type your domain followed by 'wp-includes' in your web browser.

http://www.tudominio.com/wp-includes/

If the result is a blank page or it redirects to the homepage, you're safe. But if you see your directories and files listed, you're in trouble. To fix this issue, follow these steps:

• Go to the root of your website via CPanel or FTP and open the '.htaccess' file. Inside the file, copy the following code:

# Prevent folder browsing.
Options All -Indexes

• If your site runs on 'nginx', you need to add this syntax:

autoindex off;

With these three tips to improve the security of your WordPress website your site will be safer. Nothing is inviolable, but you'll be able to sleep a little easier.