WordPress security is a topic of huge importance for every website owner. Each week, Google blacklists around 20,000 websites for malware and around 50,000 for phishing. If you are serious about your website, then you need to pay attention to the WordPress security best practices. In this guide, we will share all the top WordPress security tips to help you protect your website against hackers and malware.



While WordPress core software is very secure, and it’s audited regularly by hundreds of developers, there is a lot that can be done to harden your WordPress website.


Why Website Security is Important?

A hacked WordPress site can cause serious damage to your business revenue and reputation. Hackers can steal user information, passwords, install malicious software, and can even distribute malware to your users.

Worst, you may find yourself paying ransomware to hackers just to regain access to your website.



Best .htaccess Snippets to Improve WordPress Security



What is the .htaccess file?


An htaccess file is an optional configuration file for the Apache web server to interpret, for each directory. You can store various settings in that file such as: password protect a directory, block IPs, block a file or folder from public access, etc. Traditionally, the .htaccess file is present in the base WordPress installation directory. It stores the permalink structure by default.




1. Block Bad Bots


One of the best uses of the .htaccess file is its ability to deny multiple IP addresses from accessing your site. This is useful when blocking known spammers and other origins of suspicious or malicious access. The code is:


# Block one or more IP address.
# Replace IP_ADDRESS_* with the IP you want to block

<Limit GET POST>
order allow,deny
deny from IP_ADDRESS_1
deny from IP_ADDRESS_2
allow from all
</Limit>


Where IP_ADDRESS_1 is the first IP you want to prevent from accessing your site. You can add as many IPs you want. No matter what user agents (browsers) 0these IP addresses use, they won’t be able to access a single file from your server. The webserver will automatically deny all access.


2. Disable Directory Browsing

This is one of the most undermined security flaws in a WordPress site. By default, the Apache webserver enables directory browsing. This means that all files and folders inside the root directory (sometimes called the home directory) of the webserver is enlist able and accessible by a visitor. You do not want that because you don’t want people browsing through your media uploads or your theme or plugin files.


If at random I pick 10 personal or business websites running WordPress, 6-8 of them won’t have directory browsing disabled. This allows anyone to easily sniff around the wp-content/uploads folder or any other directory which doesn’t have the default index.php file. In fact, the screenshot you see is from one of my client’s site, before I recommended the fix. Code snippet to disable directory browsing:


# Disable directory browsing
Options All -Indexes



3. Allow Only Selected Files from wp-content

As you know the wp-content folder contains the most your themes, plugins and all media uploads. You certainly don’t want people to access it without restrictions. In addition to disabling directory browsing, you can also deny access of all file types, save a few. In essence, you can selectively unblock files like JPG, PDF, DOCX, CSS, JS, etc. and deny from the rest. To do this, paste this code snippet in your .htaccess file:


# Disable access to all file types except the following
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
<Files ~ ".(xml|css|js|jpe?g|png|gif|pdf|docx|rtf|odf|zip|rar)$">
Allow from all
</Files>


You must create a new .htaccess file with the code and paste it in the wp-content folder. Don’t place this in the base installation directory – else it won’t work. You can also add any file type to the list by appending a ‘|’ after ‘rar’. The above list contains the necessary files – XML, CSS and JavaScript, common image and document formats and finally the most-used archive formats.


4. Restrict All Access to wp-includes


The wp-includes folder contains only the files that are strictly necessary to run the core version of WordPress – one without any plugins or themes. Remember, the default theme still resides in the wp-content/theme directory. Thus, no visitor (including you) should require access to content of the wp-include folder. You can disable access using this following code snippet:


# Block wp-includes folder and files
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^wp-admin/includes/ - [F,L]
RewriteRule !^wp-includes/ - [S=3]
RewriteRule ^wp-includes/[^/]+\.php$ - [F,L]
RewriteRule ^wp-includes/js/tinymce/langs/.+\.php - [F,L]
RewriteRule ^wp-includes/theme-compat/ - [F,L]
</IfModule>



5. Allow only Selected IP Addresses to Access wp-admin


The wp-admin folder contains the files required to run the WordPress dashboard. In most cases, your visitors don’t need access to the WordPress dashboard, unless they want to register an account. A good security measure is to enable only a few selected IP addresses to access the wp-admin folder. You can allow the IPs of the people who need access to the WordPress dashboard – editors, contributors and other admins. This code snippet allows only fixed IPs to access the wp-admin folder and denies access to the rest of the world.


# Limit logins and admin by IP
<Limit GET POST PUT>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 302.143.54.102
allow from IP_ADDRESS_2
</Limit>


Make sure that you create a new .htaccess file and paste it in the wp-admin folder and not the base installation directory. If it’s the latter, no one except you will be able to browse you site – not even search engines! You certainly do not want that. A couple of downfalls of this measure is as follows:

  • If your site allows or promotes new user registration, it would be nearly impossible to keep track of the number of users. For example at WPExplorer, if you want to download our awesome free themes, then you have to register.
  • People with dynamic IP addresses (mostly ADSL broadband users using PPP or PPPoE protocols) have their IPs changed, every time they logout and login to their ISP. Certainly it would be impractical to keep track of all these IPs and add them to the htaccess file.
  • Mobile broadband: Whether you’re on 3G or 4G, your IP address depends on current cell tower you’re connected to. Say you’re travelling – your IP will be constantly changing with every couple of miles you move from the origin. Again, keeping track for the htaccess file is nearly impossible.
  • Public Wi-Fi Hotspots: Using credentials when connected to the Internet using a public Wi-Fi hotspot is a big no-no, since a kid with a tiny software can extract every character you type. Not to mention, each Wi-Fi hotspot will have a unique IP address.

Thankfully, all these disadvantages (save the first one), can be rectified by using a VPN. If you set your VPN to connect using only a single IP address, then you can just add it to your htaccess file, and all your problems will be solved.


6. Protect wp-config.php and .htaccess from everyone


The wp-config.php file contains the most sensitive access credentials of your WordPress site. It contains the database name and access credentials and various other critical data, amongst other settings. Under no circumstances do you want other people looking into this file. And of course, you want to disable public access to the source of all this security – the .htaccess file itself. You can disable access to wp-config.php with this following code:


# Deny access to wp-config.php file
<files wp-config.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>


To deny access to all htaccess files (remember some may reside in the wp-admin and other folders), use this code snippet:


# Deny access to all .htaccess files
<files ~ "^.*\.([Hh][Tt][Aa])">
order allow,deny
deny from all
satisfy all
</files>


7. Deny Image Hotlinking


One of the coolest .htaccess file hacks, this one sends content scrapers running with their tail between their legs. When someone uses your site’s image, your bandwidth is being consumed and most of the time, you’re not even credited for it. This code snippet eliminates that problem and sends this image when a hotlink is detected.


# Prevent image hotlinking script. Replace last URL with any image link you want.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourwebsite.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourotherwebsite.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ http://i.imgur.com/MlQAH71.jpg [NC,R,L]


8. Enable Browser Caching


Also known as client-side caching, this .htaccess hack with enable the recommended browser caching options for your WordPress site. You could also use it in other projects – HTML sites, etc.


# Setup browser caching
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year"
ExpiresDefault "access 2 days"
</IfModule>


9. Redirect to a Maintenance page

When you’re migrating webhosts or performing some maintenance task, it is always recommended to create a static “down for maintenance” HTML file to inform your visitors that the website is undergoing an upgrade or maintenance operation. Simply create a maintenance.html file (or any other filename) and upload it to the base WordPress installation directory. Paste the following snippet in your .htaccess file. Once the operation is over, make sure to delete or comment out these lines to go back to overall operation. You can comment out by appending a ‘#’ at the beginning of each line.


#Redirect all traffic to maintenance.html file
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/maintenance.html$
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^123\.123\.123\.123
RewriteRule $ /maintenance.html [R=302,L] 


10. Custom Error Pages

You can also the .htaccess file to configure user-friendly custom error pages for errors such as 403, 404 and 500. Once you have prepared your error page – let’s say error.html, upload it to your base WordPress installation directory. Then add the following code snippet to your .htaccess file to enable the custom error page:


# Custom error page for error 403, 404 and 500
ErrorDocument 404 /error.html
ErrorDocument 403 /error.html
ErrorDocument 500 /error.html


Conclusion:

Today we’ve learnt some of the coolest htaccess hacks to strengthen your WordPress site. I would suggest you to try out each module one by one while taking a backup of the .htaccess file before and after testing each module. This is because the .htaccess file is very critical. A missing ‘#’ character or misplaced ‘</IfModule>’ could destroy your site’s integrity. If you access your WordPress dashboard frequently on-the-go, it’s recommended not to enable selective IPs to your wp-admin folder.

Over to you – what’s your take on this post? Do you think this is worth the trouble of editing the htaccess file? Do you know of a better security tip? We’d love to hear from you.







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