Is WordPress Security a Priority For Your Business Website?

With just about everything being possible through the internet, have you ever stopped and thought about the number of online accounts you hold? It could be as little as 2 or 3 but the chances are, it’s actually 50+ and you don’t even realise it.

When you sign up for an online account, you provide information such as an email address / username and password which are then used from that point to secure your online account with that particular website / company. When entering the password, have you ever stopped and thought about how secure it is? Chances are, you haven’t even considered it. You might be thinking, of course it’s secure, only I know the password.

Wrong.

So, how does this link into your WordPress website?

When setting up a WordPress website, there are many areas which are vulnerable to attack by hackers. A common example is the ability to identify the username of the administrator account. Utilising this loophole, the hacker is half way to gaining access to the dashboard. Even with all the warnings flying around the internet today, most users still use passwords which are considered weak and insecure. You may choose a random word as your password – it might seem ‘secure’ at the time but it can easily be found in a dictionary when a hacker attempts a brute force attack with the goal of gaining access to your account.

Using simple tools which can be downloaded from the internet, a hacker can easily detect a password containing words from the dictionary in a matter of minutes, sometimes even second. Worrying, right? Even a password containing personal information such as your name or significant events such as your anniversary or birthday may not be as secure as you think or would hope.

We’ve put together some stats on how secure passwords are below.

7 character password consisting of;

a-z = 2 seconds to hack

a-z and A-Z = 6 minutes to hack

a-z, A-Z and 0-9 = 20 minutes to hack

a-z, A-Z, 0-9 £%& = 6 hours to hack

Random password with introducing uppercase and lowercase letters with symbols

securepassword = 51 years

S3cur3pa55w0rd = 10 million years

Can you see how simple changes to make a password more complex can make it much harder to crack and ultimately prevent hackers gaining access to your WordPress website?

Tips for securing your passwords

• Always use passwords which don’t feature any dictionary words
• Use longer passwords – when there are more characters, it makes it a much longer process to crack
• Use a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters to make a complex password

If you want to ensure your WordPress site is as secure as possible, Platinum Digital have a solution for you. We have crafted support plans to keep your website secure, online and backed up so you no longer have to worry about the technical aspect of your website.

If you would like to discuss what we can offer your business, you can schedule a call at a time that suits you where we can run through your requirements and ensure you and your website get the best possible support.

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