How To Improve the WooCommerce Security ( WooCommerce Security Checklist)
An online business does involve a lot of hard work. You will have to add the products, conduct the marketing activities and strategies, and fix the bugs. This will worry the site’s security as online theft is on the rise. Securing eCommerce with multiple opportunities is the topmost priority. This involves logging and entering personal details at large. WooCommerce holds a share of 42% of the market.
As there is an increase in the market share, the bigger and greater chances of getting it hacked are witnessed; woocommerce security issues should be considered. It is essential to harden the security measures where WooCommerce secured features come to the role play.
Is WooCommerce Secure?
When we explain WooCommerce, this security question will likely come to your mind. There is no hole in the WooCommerce safety. It is an accurate measure introduced by a dollar-earning company with the ready resources to secure the store. WooCommerce is built flexibly; popular tools will make the website more secure. in next section you learn how to secure woocommerce site.
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How Do I Make WooCommerce Secure?
One of the first questions that come to mind when owning an online store is that how to improve the security of WooCommerce store? There are some different ways that you can utilize to make your online store more secure. These ways are categorized into three different sections based on their priority. At first, we go with the essential things you can do.
Essential
1- Choosing a Reliable Host
Never put your new store just anywhere. There are ample chances of it getting hacked. It is important for both the owner and the customer who may lead to serious risk. By choosing a reputable host it is important to make the site your top security priorities. Seek out the managed WordPress hosting where security measures are clearly stated. The features include:
- Attack prevention and monitoring
- Proactive reviews and patches of security threats like plug-in
- Update the server using PHP or the latest versions.
- Isolate and prevent the chances of the virus spreading in your system
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Protect wp-config.php File
Wp-config.php file is the most important file of online stores and contains essential information even if your visitors never see it. It is not difficult for a hacker to attack the WooCommerce store if the wp-config.php file is not accessible to him. This file must be moved to a higher level than the root of your store to solve this problem. But, how the server finds this file if it is at a level higher than the WooCommerce root? The answer is Genius: The configuration of WooCommerce takes this file into consideration as the first priority.
Suggest you read our article about ecommerce website best practicesPrevent Editing of Certain Files
Users can edit any file on your store If they have access rights to the admin section, including extensions and themes. However, you can prevent editing of these files, even if a hacker accesses your dashboard. Add “define (‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);” line at the end of your wp-config.php file to prevent editing files.
Configure Files Permission
Changing the permission of your folders is necessary to secure hosting If your store is hosted on your case. Use 755 permission for records, and 644 for your files through FTP space to avoid this.
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Prevent viewing the content records
Hackers can directly find all the contents of your folder if you create a new folder without adding an index.html file to it. They simply type the URL www.mywoocommercestore.com/secure/ and access it with any password. Avoid this risk by adding “.htaccess file: Options All –Indexes” line in your file.
2) Use High-Quality Plugins
Not all plugins and extensions are great ways to expand stores while they are created equal. Use reputable forever not to make it easier for hackers to get into your site and DO NOT download free versions of premium plugins from third parties; they’re often modified to include malware. Moreover, make sure that your plugins are regularly updated and work with the latest versions of WordPress and WooCommerce.
If you want to know more about wordpress security plugins 2022 , check this article out!3) Create Strongest Passwords as a Primary Set
Create a stronger password by using capital, small letters, numbers, and symbols along with combined dictionary words. Prioritize with the length of the password. With the WordPress WooCommerce security latest version 2.5 releases, you can make a strong password that indicates and pops up whenever a new account is created.
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4) Set Limit To the Brute Force Login Attempts
The use of the WooCommerce site security features suggests you limit the number of times anyone can successfully attempt to log into your store. It takes place even before the IP address has been blocked. Stopping the malicious login attempts will stop you on track and keep the trackers far away. Using Jetpack will make it easier for you.
Note: Jetpack for your online store is a versatile plug-in for protection from the delivery channel.
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Related: What is Joomla used for
5- Get One Additional Site Security
From host security to password security potential defenses will track in all those who are potentially trying to harm your account. From the WooCommerce website security, Jet pack there are multiple protection and support offered
- It takes real-time backups & restores automatically
- It is used for daily security scanning to get track of any suspicious code
- Protects from unwanted reviews and spam content
6) Quickly Learn the Safety of Your Site and Create Backups
The final best security tip for an online store owner is- never to ignore the available updates. By updating the security features and available plugins you can get access to the best backup at a minimum cost. The testing and updating stages have an updated slide until the latter comes. Set a time and make the update for hassle-free usage.
Note: Updates are released every season and make your site more secure and authentic.
If you want to know how to set up woocommerce , this post can help you!
If you want to know how to set up woocommerce , this post can help you!
7) Secure WooCommerce Site Login Page
Block Intrusion Attempts
There are different options you can set -such as Astra Security extension- to estimate that a connection attempt is a harassment test. The hacker’s IP address bans during any time you choose in the administration of the plugin and they will be blocked just as you notified if they tried to enter your e-commerce.
Use Email to Login
Since usernames are usually common and easier to guess, the Email Login Auto extension forces you to connect with a user email address which can only be used by one user. It is much safer to use an email address rather than a username, even though users are asked to enter their username to login by default. Configure the basic settings and the store becomes operational in your store as soon as it is installed!8) Rename Login Page
Only someone who knows the exact URL by which one can connect will actually be able to do it better! Replace your login address to see 99% of all hacking attempts to access your administration will be blocked at a moment of time.
Change “login.php” to “my-new-login” or “wp-admin” to “my-new-admin” for example to get help from themes Security extension once again to adapt this address.
It can easily be changed even though it is always by the address “login.php” or “wp-admin” that we connect. Changing this address (URL) is important because hackers know it better than anybody else.
9) Protect wp-admin Directory
Resort two passwords to access your admin:
The first protects access to your login page and the second to your admin area.
Using Ask Apache Password Protect extension automatically generates a .htpasswd file which will take back the password. Only allow access to the wp-admin folder with a password because your store will be completely out of order if a file of it damages.
10) Secure WooCommerce Database
All information on the online store is stored in your database. It is essential to protect it. Here are different ways to secure it.
Change the Prefix of Tables
You can already warn of unwanted SQL injections by changing your prefix wp- into something like sr-, mg-, pr-, etc. There are also extensions to adapt your prefix if you have already installed your store and, therefore, its database. You will be more assailable to hacking attacks if you modify “WooCommerce store is wp-“, the default prefix of tables in WordPress, with something unique. Back up your database beforehand to avoid data loss first.
11) Install SSL Certificates
Hosting an online store with an SSL certificate is very common today. You can buy this certificate from an accredited body but there are also few hosting providers like Cloud ways that offer it free to you. It will bring you more visitors and potential customers too! Google is increasingly taking the SSL certificate installation into consideration when ranking its results so they also impact your SEO on Google too.
It prevents the hacker from getting into your conversations and transactions, which ensures encrypt the information flowing between the browser and the server.
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For complete info about what does an ssl certificate do , check this post out!
Moderate
1) Secure WooCommerce Themes and Extensions
The version number of your online store appears from the beginning of your source code. Add the following code in your functions.php file.
function remove_version_info () {
return ”;
}
add_filter (‘the_generator’, ‘remove_version_info’);
to hide it. It will protect your themes and extensions well. Unfortunately, Themes and Extensions can experience security problems while it is necessary to customize your online store by using them.
2) Secure Store Accounts
Your registrants/authors/managers’ inability to use “standard” words is really worth installing if you have a collaborative store. Using Force Strong Passwords extension requires the introduction of secure passwords and it will make you sure that different authors’ intervention in your store is not going to take you into vulnerable trouble.
Related: how to create subdomain in cpanel
3) Check on the Adjustment of the Setting on FTP Directories
The WooCommerce security performs greatly to track done your sensitive directories via FTP. These have potential chances to harm your account and site as a whole. If you limit the write access for all the directories, then you can secure them completely from any sort of potential damage. Ensure that the following folders have your FTP account access.
• The root directory
• wp-content
• wp-includes
• wp-admin
Only you need to give the server the write access to wp-content.
4) Using a Dissimilar Username Than ‘Admin’
The passwords are made uncommon every time. Similarly, it is important to make the ‘admin’ or ‘store name’ dissimilar from each other. By using the combined strong password, you are giving the hackers a hard time cracking it. Simply, login to the WordPress admin, navigate to the User> Add New and create an assigned administrator from the available WordPress. Followed by log out and then log in to the new admin account. You can delete the previous account and start posting on the new admin user.
Note: Hide the author URL for safety purposes. This will eliminate the list of users from the hackers’ checklists.
5) Hide Author URL
You get a URL like websitename.com/author/myname whenever you create a user. Finding usernames from authors’ archives eliminates one step from a hacker’s checklist. He just needs to crack the password.
It is recommended to change the authors’ archives URL from the username. It can be easily changed by customizing the user_nicename under the wp_users table.
6) Implement security scanning
Hackers are often much willing to inject non immediately obvious malware or steal customer data; instead of defacing the website. Jetpack Security Scanning checks the website daily for suspicious code or activity and sends you an email if there as any. You won’t even need to worry about finding a solution for the majority of known security threats they provide automated fixes.
Scan a website just like you scan your home computer to find any viruses or malware, or you wouldn’t know if there was an unauthorized login.
7) Monitor site activity
Jetpack’s activity log allows you to quickly review changes that have taken place on-site and identify anything odd to understand what actions are taking place and who is performing them. First, restore a backup from right before a specific action if you’ve enabled Jetpack real-time backups.
Then check the logged in, updated a page, removed a plugin, and more dates and times to know and immediately react if someone logs in and makes an unauthorized change.
Suggest you read our article about what is jetpack plugin used forAdvanced
1) Set Up a Firewall
Setting a firewall up on a website level adds another layer of security and blocks most of the threats before they reach your store, even if your host includes a firewall itself. Here there are some of the most common, trusted, WordPress firewalls, etc. Secure, Word fence, All in One WP Security & Firewall, and themes Security. You can even customize things more by typically set up a firewall through a plugin if you have advanced knowledge or specific needs.
2) Permit 2-Factor Authentication
A stronger password is not enough for securing your store admin. If someone gains the access to your email or other accounts, then they will grab the details. The WooCommerce security 2-factor authentication is a fantastic way to save your online accounts from intruders. This 2 way of authentication relies on Smartphone authentication and the validating of the logins to verify with the other accounts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is WooCommerce Safe?
Just like WordPress, WooCommerce users are constantly at the risk of different issues such as malicious attacks and hacking.
Conclusion
Hopefully, the above-mentioned content serves your security-related questions and struggles. When you are starting with an online store, make security a priority to run it faster and smoother. Keep the customer data safe and have the topmost priority from the very beginning. WooCommerce is a reputable and reliable host offering multiple benefits to the users on time. By following the 8 most important steps you can meet the best results.
Do you have any further suggestions to add to this, let’s drop in a message in the comment box and discuss it. For more information click here .
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