2. Building Secure
WordPress Sites
By Sakin Shrestha
Blog: http://sakinshrestha.com
Email: sakin@catchinternet.com
Twitter: @sakinshrestha

3. Sakin Shrestha
• Founder of Catch Internet and Catch Themes
• WordPress Theme Developer
• Business Consultant
• Member of WordPress Theme Review Team

4. WordPress
• Most Popular Open Source Web Application
• 17% of the Websites in the World
• 1 in 6 websites

5. Top 10 Myths That
We Live By
Source:
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2012/08/29/top-10-
wordpress-security-myths/

6. The Myths We Live By
Myth 1:
WordPress is not Secure
Reality:
• Old versions of WordPress are NOT
secure
• Current WordPress version is secure

7. The Myths We Live By
Myth 2:
Nobody wants to hack my site
Reality:
• Most hacking attempts are automated
• Once your site is on public web
hosting, you need to protect it.
• When using WordPress you need to keep
theme and plugins updated

8. The Myths We Live By
Myth 3:
My WordPress site is 100% secured
Reality:
• No site that’s accessible on the internet will
ever be 100% secure.
• You need to have a good backup available

9. The Myths We Live By
Myth 4:
Updating my themes and plugins
whenever I log in is good enough
Reality:
• It’s not. You need to update it ASAP
• Timthumb script exploit was discovered
and exploited on a mass number of blogs
within DAYS!

10. The Myths We Live By
Myth 5:
I only use themes and plugins from
wordpress.org, so I’m safe
Reality:
• Plugins and themes are the #1 way
hackers gain access to your site
• Only WordPress current Core is secure
• WordPress.org is safer but not sure bet

11. The Myths We Live By
Myth 6:
If I de-activate a theme or plugin, there is
no risk
Reality:
• There is risk
• Because even files of de-activated plugins
and themes can be access via the Internet

12. The Myths We Live By
Myth 7:
My site is secured by Security Plugins
Reality:
• It just add layer of protection
• It won’t help much if a hacker gains access
to your online session & password, or
sensitive files
• It won’t help if the hosting server is
compromised

13. The Myths We Live By
Myth 8:
If my site is compromised I will quickly find
out
Reality:
• Many hacks are invisible to visitors and
only visible to bots
• You may not know until your site has been
blacklisted by Google
• Use site monitoring service or plugin

14. The Myths We Live By
Myth 9:
My password is good enough
Reality:
• A normal 8 characters or less password
can be decoded easily.
• Try using mix of characters, numbers and
special characters
• Use password generator tools

15. The Myths We Live By
Myth 10:
If my site is hacked, my hosting can
restore it for me
Reality:
• Yes if you have premium hosting severs
like WordPress VIP Hosting
• No for normal hosting.

16. Building Secure
WordPress Sites
in
Simple 10 Steps

17. Building Secure WordPress Sites
Step 1:
Secure your own Computer
Recommendation:
Keep it private
Run anti-virus software regularly
Don’t login via insecure or public WIFI
network
Be careful of sites you click on.

18. Building Secure WordPress Sites
Step 2:
Get reliable Hosting server
Recommended Hosting:
Bluehost
Media Temple
Web Synthesis
WP Engine
WordPress VIP Hosting

19. Building Secure WordPress Sites
Step 3:
Add Secret Keys in wp-config.php file
Recommendation:
A secret key is a hashing salt which makes
your site harder to hack by adding random
elements to the password.
Visit this URL to get your secret keys:
https://api.wordpress.org/secret-
key/1.1/salt/

20. Building Secure WordPress Sites
Step 4:
Proper File and Folder Permission
Recommendation:
Files should be set to 644
Folders should be set to 755

21. Building Secure WordPress Sites
Step 5:
Use strong password and remove admin
name
Recommendation:
Use password generator to reset
passwords for WP, FTP, Hosting and Email
Create a new admin user, log out, login as
new user, delete old the “admin” user and
assign posts/pages to new admin

22. Building Secure WordPress Sites
Step 6:
Get reliable WordPress theme
Recommendation:
Use free theme hosted in WordPress.org
Use premium theme only from reputed
theme development companies
( Catch Themes, Woo Themes, Graph
Paper Press)

23. Building Secure WordPress Sites
Step 7:
Get reliable WordPress plugins
Recommendation:
Try to minimize the use of plugins
For free plugins only use Top Rated and
Popular plugins in WordPress.org
For premium plugins check the
code, change logs and feedbacks

24. Building Secure WordPress Sites
Step 8:
Setup backup schedule
Recommendation:
Use backup plugin such as
VaultPress, Backup Buddy, WP DB
Backup, WP Online backup and so on
Backup as often as you don’t want to loose
data

25. Building Secure WordPress Sites
Step 9:
Update Update and Update
Recommendation:
No Excuse
Update your WordPress, Themes and
Plugins

26. Building Secure WordPress Sites
Step 10:
Install Security Plugins
Recommendation:
Better WP Security
SucuriSitecheck Malware Scanner
Secure WordPress
BulletProof Security
WP Security Scan

27. Better WP Security: Hides
• Remove the meta "Generator” tag
• Change the urls for WordPress dashboard including
login, admin, and more
• Completely turn off the ability to login for a given time period
(away mode)
• Remove theme, plugin, and core update notifications
from users who do not have permission to update them
• rename "admin" account and Change the ID on the user with
ID 1
• Change the WordPress database table prefix
• Removes login error messages

28. Better WP Security: Protects
• Scan your site to instantly tell where vulnerabilities are
and fix them in seconds
• Ban troublesome bots and other hosts
• Ban troublesome user agents
• Prevent brute force attacks by banning hosts and users
with too many invalid login attempts
• Enforce strong passwords for all accounts of a
configurable minimum role
• Force SSL for admin page (on supporting servers)
• Turn off file editing from within WordPress admin area
• Detect and block numerous attacks to your filesystem
and database

29. Better WP Security: Detect
• Monitor filesystem for unauthorized changes
• Detect bots and other attempts to search for vulnerabilities
Better WP Security: Recovery
• Create and email database backups on a customizable
schedule

30. Resources for WordPress Security
Security Related Articles
• http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress
• http://blog.sucuri.net/2012/04/lockdown-wordpress-a-
security-webinar-with-dre-armeda.html
• http://blog.sucuri.net/2012/04/ask-sucuri-how-to-stop-the-
hacker-and-ensure-your-site-is-locked.html
• http://catchinternet.com/blog/wordpress-security-tips/
Clean a Hacked Site
• http://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_My_site_was_hacked
• http://www.marketingtechblog.com/wordpress-hacked/
• http://sakinshrestha.com/wordpress/fix-if-your-wordpress-
site-is-hacked/

31. Resources for WordPress Security
Support Forums
• Hacked: http://wordpress.org/tags/hacked
• Malware: http://wordpress.org/tags/malware

32. Building Secure
WordPress Sites
Sakin Shrestha
Blog: http://sakinshrestha.com
Email: sakin@catchinternet.com
Twitter: @sakinshrestha