Website security has become an essential part of any online business. Especially for e-commerce stores where you expect your customers to pay & store their details on your website, you really need to ensure that there is no security flaw.
Luckily, for WooCommerce stores (WordPress based e-commerce websites), there are several things that you or your website developer can do in order to secure it from most of the security threats & vulnerabilities.
Here you will lean 12 such things to do in order to secure your WooCommerce store in 2020.
#1 Change Your Hosting
If you have been experiencing security issues in your existing WooCommerce website for quite long time, now is the right time to switch over your website hosting to a reliable one.
Hosting for any website is as important as its development. Therefore, before subscribing with any website hosting package, you must ensure that your server is SSL enabled & hardened for the security.
#2 Use Latest Versions Of PHP & WordPress
Websites that have outdated versions of PHP & WordPress installation are more vulnerable and can get affected easily.
Therefore, it is necessary that the PHP & WordPress version your server must be updated regularly. The best & affordable way to achieve this is to hire a website designer on annual basis.
In other words, you can subscribe for a website maintenance package so that you don’t need to worry about the updating of your WooCommerce website anymore.
#3 Use Clever Passwords & Username
Using easy-to-guess usernames and passwords is another way of compromising with your website’s security.
Most of the WooCommerce website owners still use “admin” as their username. Even worst, some of the webmasters even use “admin” as their passwords.
Using these kinds of credentials is an open invitation to the hackers to enter into your website and do whatever they want to do.
What’s the solution here?
Always use clever username & password for your WordPress admin so that it’s hard to guess for the hackers.
#4 Upgrade Plugins & Theme
We all know that WordPress website uses several plugins and a theme to run & render the design respectively.
All of these plugins & themes are developed by individual website developers or website development companies. And most of these web developers keep updating their plugin codes in order to cope-up with the latest technologies and fix the existing issues from time to time.
With each update in any plugin or theme that your WooCommerce store has been using, you do need to upgrade those plugins or theme too. If you don’t, you may loosen your website’s security.
Note: Before you upgrade any plugin or theme yourself, you must consult your WordPress developer first.
#5 Change Login URL
If you have been using WordPress for quite long, I bet you know that the default admin URL of any WP website is https://websitename.com/wp-admin/
Hackers know this too.
Therefore, you must ensure that your website backend is not accessible through this default URL. There are many plugins like “All in one WP security” that can be used in order to change the default login URL of your WooCommerce website.
#6 Use Two-Factor Authentication
What is two-factor authentication?
Two-factor authentication involves a two-step process in which you need 2 different methods to login. One of these methods could text (SMS), phone call, or OTP (one time password) and other one is the usual password.
Why its effective to have two-factor authentication?
It is almost impossible that the attacker will have both your password and your cellphone.
#7 Harden Configuration File
Every WordPress website has a configuration file that’s known as “wp-config.php”.
Usually this file contains some confidential information of the website like database username, database password etc. Therefore, it’s mandatory to secure this file in order to avoid any sort of security issues.
Here are some of the ways to secure “wp-config” file of any WooCommerce store:
- Change the default or original position of this file.
- Change permissions of this file.
#8 Hide WordPress Version
Most website developers don’t pay attention on hiding the WordPress version that a website has been using. As a result, it becomes a welcome sign for intruders.
There is one simple way to hide your WordPress version from its codes. Use below code in the “functions.php” file:
————–
function wp_version_remove_version() {
return ”;
}
add_filter(‘the_generator’, ‘wp_version_remove_version’);
————–
#9 Use WordPress Security Plugins
One of the simplest ways to secure a WooCommerce website in 2020 is to use a security plugin.
To the best of my knowledge, “All in one WP security” can help you in securing your WordPress website by providing below features:
- Protection against “Brute Force Login Attack”
- Force logout of all users after a configurable time period.
- Enable manual approval of WordPress user accounts.
- Easily set the default WP prefix to a value of your choice with the click of a button.
- Password strength tool to allow you to create very strong passwords.
- Changing the default username of your WooCommerce store.
#10 Enabling SSL
Enabling SSL for each and every webpage of your WooCommerce store is yet another way to secure your website.
Below are some of the major benefits of integrating your website with SSL:
- SSL can help you to protect your customers’ confidential information.
- SSL can help you to protect your website from hackers by encrypting the important information.
- SSL can also help you to get higher search engine rankings.
- Your customers will trust your website if it’s SSL enabled.
#11 Check File Permissions
Another best way to secure any WordPress website is to check & modify the permissions of all the important files such as “wp-config.php” so that the intruders can’t access them at all.
Again, if you use “All in one WP security” plugin to protect your website, changing the permissions of important files can be as easy as few clicks.
#12 Take Backups
Taking regular backups of your WooCommerce store is the best solution to avoid any kind of issues.
No matter how well you protect your website, there can be some cases when your website is affected for some unknown reason or any of the latest security threats.
Always having a latest working copy of your e-commerce website will enable you to restore it in case of any emergency.
#13 Enable firewall
Basically firewall prevents hackers from attacking a network.
It won’t be wrong to say that it is one of the best protections ever made to stand out against the internet threats. You can enable firewall on your website server too.
How can your server’s firewall help you:
- Preventing your online store from hackers.
- Providing your website with the better security.
- Providing protection against Trozans.
#14 regular testing & troubleshooting
Last but not the least, testing your WooCommerce website regularly for security is another way to protect your website from security threats.
There are several security tools that are available to integrate with a website.
These tools help webmasters discover security issues on their websites.
You can also install these security tools with your website and hire a website developer to troubleshoot if you discover any security threat.
