WordPress serves over 30% of website owners across the world. It is one of the most used and best open source CMS in existence. WordPress is designed to upgrade the standards, aesthetics, and usability of websites. These three features have awarded WordPress with an alpha CMS position among bloggers, designers, e-commerce owners, etc. WordPress depends a lot on plugins to provide additional features to websites.
Half of the vulnerabilities occurring to WordPress is through the use of faulty or insecure plugins. The attackers use this possibility to target such websites. Here, we can discuss some common and some not-so-common tips for defending your WordPress site from plugin vulnerabilities.
Beware of Using Free Plugins
Free plugins can reduce your website’s operational cost. Some free plugins are obviously useful and are worth installing. Without them, you couldn’t complete many activities that you should do on your WordPress site.
But the trouble in free plugins is that these are created and uploaded by individuals from any part of the world. They ought to attract free users and encourage them to upgrade to the premium versions of the plugins, thereby enjoying much more features and functionalities. Plugins that don’t update regularly are an open gate to hackers. Installing such plugins can damage your resources and bring great harm to your Wordpress website.
Choose the Right Plugin
We don’t have any plugin in WordPress that is cent percent safe and secure. Still, you can learn to analyze the plugins and choose them based on quality, thus reducing vulnerabilities occurring through them. Installing plugins available in common plugin markets is always a safe deal. The original WordPress repository, Envato Market, and third-party plugin stores with secure purchase options can be chosen to install plugins from. The WordPress store thoroughly goes through each plugin before making it available through its market. Other stores also have similar reviews before letting in the plugins.
You can analyze a plugin by going through the average user ratings, user reviews, active installations, updates, support & documentation, etc. to make sure of their authenticity.
Plugins are created carefully by well-coding. Still, there can be plugins which are badly coded, and these plugins will be vulnerable to those sites they are installed. By regularly checking the changelog, you can make sure that the plugin owner supports the plugin and responds to the users’ needs. Only a few entries in the changelog means that the plugin needs no more updates.
Install Lesser Plugins
Inclining excessively to plugins is not at all a good habit. It not only slows down your website but also affects your website performance. A large number of plugins put your server under pressure, thus slowing down your website. Slower sites often receive a lesser SERP rank on search engines, as users prefer visiting faster websites.
Manually Check the Plugin Performance Regularly
Running a website for business need utmost care every time. This makes it important to care for all aspects with topmost priority. The performance of plugins is also important for running a perfect and fast business website. Manually checking the performance of the plugins is very important for such websites. Thus, you can have a track of any hack attacks or suspicious activities and resolve the issues as early as possible.
Delete Outdated & Unused Plugins from Your Websites
When you use too many plugins on your WordPress website, it will be difficult for you to track any suspicious activity in any plugin. Even when plugins are inactive, they may spare the RAM, bandwidth or PHP, but not the server space. As long as they are installed, they consume your server space. These plugins will also use your resources and yet make your website slow. This will gradually affect the performance of your website.
Therefore, it is recommended to not keep these plugins for a long period of time. Visit your plugin list regularly and check for the plugins that you don’t use. Also, look for plugins that have not been updated in a long time. Uninstall the plugins immediately as they are of no use and will slow-down your WordPress site.
Use Premium Plugins if Possible
Free plugins are available in the global internet market in plenty. And not all of these plugins are developed by authorized plugin developers. Most plugins are made by developers individually and that makes some of the free plugins vulnerable to spam, malware, and hack attacks. Therefore, it is always advised to use premium plugins if possible. If you are forced to use a free plugin, always make a thorough check before installing them. If you can keep a budget for plugins, you can buy some premium plugins from within the budget, and avoid the risk of pushing your website into trouble.
Update Plugins Regularly
WordPress plugin developers put on notification in the dashboard when they provide updates. Many WordPress website owners ignore these notifications and neglect them as unimportant. If a hacker comes to know about any breakthrough in a previous version of any plugin, he can use this loophole to break into a website through this plugin.
With a well-updated plugin, a WordPress owner can bypass such unwanted troubles. So, take care to update the plugins whenever there is a new notification, or else the website may get into trouble.
Wrapping Up
WordPress owners believe in plugins and they rely on these plugins to work well with the websites. They help a website to level up in performance and to upgrade their SEO for more results. Meanwhile, non-updated and unfunctional plugins can be great harm to the installed WordPress websites. They can not only create a data loss but also a financial loss to the website owner. All the above tips can help you nurture your website without any security issues from plugins. Hope you can use them effectively and keep a secure WordPress.
We are happy if you found the tips useful. However, there’s more to any topic than ever discussed. If you have more to share, let us know in the comment box. When we share, we learn together.
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