Bolstering WordPress Security with WordFence
WordPress security should be one of your first considerations when setting up a website. If your business is one which relies heavily on its WordPress website, you’ll know just how important it is to thoroughly protect and secure your site. A threat to your WordPress site is a threat to your entire business – malicious hackers could wreak havoc if they manage to gain access to your site, and malware and other viruses are also a real risk.
There are obviously some steps you can take to shore up WordPress security – choosing a good web host, keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, and ensuring you’re running the most recent version of WordPress will all help. But there’s one great plugin which can add a vital layer of security to your WordPress site: it’s called WordFence.
WordPress Security with WordFence
Described as ‘the most downloaded security plugin for WordPress websites’, WordFence comes with a multitude of features and tools that prevent your website from being hacked and provides rapid alerts if your site is ever compromised in any way.
The plugin is totally free (although there is a Premium version available with a greater array of features), and it includes a firewall, real-time traffic analysis, virus and malware scanning, bot monitoring and much more. Put simply, it’s an absolutely essential plugin for any business that relies on its WordPress website. This is why we recommend it to all customers to increase their WordPress security.
WordFence Features
Firewall: WordFence’s Firewall option comes with plenty of sub-categories to ensure you’re fully protected. You can configure the Firewall to block certain web applications and traffic from certain countries, and you can also manually block referring websites, IP addresses or specific web browsers that you deem as a threat.
Scanning: The scanning tools provided by WordFence are also excellent – you can scan your entire site for malware or viruses, as well as checking whether your website URL is being used for ‘spamvertising’. Premium users can also conduct powerful remote scans for possible infections.
Live Traffic: The Live Traffic tools offered by WordFence help manage fake crawlers or those which are overly aggressive, blocking them from crawling your site immediately, which allows the authentic Google crawlers to do their important work. You can also view your human visitors and check up on Google’s crawl activity to keep on top of it all.
Tools: WordFence comes with a bunch of extra tools to make monitoring your site’s security easy. You can check up on your disk space, set up advanced spam filters for your comment sections, repair corrupt files and even sign in on your smartphone for updates on-the-go.
How To Install WordFence
WordFence is fairly easy to install with WordPress’ easy plugin installation feature. Simply sign into your WordPress website and you’ll see the Admin page as normal. Click the ‘Plugins’ option on the left-hand toolbar and choose ‘Add New’.
You’ll now be taken to a list of all WordPress’ available plugins for your site. Search for WordFence, then click ‘Install Now’. Et voila! Your site is now running WordFence. You can access the plugin from the main WordPress menu bar, configuring it to meet your needs and accessing all the plentiful tools it offers.
Do you run WordFence on your WordPress website? Let us know in the comments!
