Introduction
A website is the digital business card of any business or individual. To help protect this asset, this WordPress security guide was created to present best practices based on industry reports, ensuring visitors feel safe and data remains protected.
For this experience to be positive, it is essential that visitors feel safe — especially when the website is used for contact forms, user authentication, or e-commerce transactions. However, many basic security aspects are still neglected, leaving numerous websites vulnerable to attacks.
This article presents WordPress security best practices, based on reports and studies from recognised organisations in the field of cybersecurity.
1. Why focus on WordPress?
WordPress is currently the most widely used Content Management System (CMS) in the world, driven by its flexibility, large community, and extensive ecosystem of plugins and themes. However, this popularity also makes it one of the main targets of automated attacks (Wordfence, 2023).
It is important to note that the WordPress core itself is considered secure and is continuously audited by experts. Most security incidents are related to third-party plugins, themes, and poor maintenance practices (WPScan, 2024).
2. The first critical step: choosing themes and plugins
WordPress website security begins even before the site is published, during the selection of components to be installed.
2.1 Official and trusted sources
This is the golden rule. Installing a plugin or theme from untrusted sources is equivalent to granting administrative privileges to an unknown person. It is recommended to obtain themes and plugins only from recognised sources, such as:
- The official WordPress directory (WordPress.org)
- Reputable premium theme marketplaces (e.g., ThemeForest, Elegant Themes, StudioPress)
According to the WordPress Foundation (2024), the official directory undergoes continuous review processes, significantly reducing the risk of malicious code.
2.2 The risk of “nulled” themes
Finding a paid premium plugin available “for free” on unofficial websites is a major red flag. These themes and plugins, known as nulled (pirated versions), represent one of the greatest security risks, as they often contain:
- Backdoors
- Malicious scripts
- Code for spam distribution or traffic redirection
In addition, users lose access to critical security updates, leaving the website exposed to already known vulnerabilities (Kaspersky, 2023).
3. The reality of attacks: what the numbers say
The importance of WordPress security is supported by concrete data:
- More than 2,800 attacks per second target WordPress websites worldwide, mostly carried out by automated bots (HubSpot, 2023).
- Vulnerability reports indicate that over 95% of security flaws are related to plugins and themes, not the WordPress core itself (WPScan, 2024).
- According to Sucuri, more than 50% of infected WordPress websites were outdated at the time of the attack (Sucuri, 2022).
These figures show that most attacks could be prevented by adopting basic maintenance best practices.
4. Main causes of WordPress website compromise
Based on reports from specialised web security companies, the most common causes of successful attacks include:
- Outdated plugins and themes containing known vulnerabilities;
- Weak passwords and the absence of two-factor authentication (2FA), facilitating brute-force attacks;
- Vulnerabilities in popular plugins, widely exploited due to their high number of installations (Wordfence, 2023; Kaspersky, 2023).
5. Recommended plugins
| Objective | Recommended Plugin | Justification |
|---|---|---|
| General security | Wordfence Security | Acts as a firewall and intrusion detection system |
| Hide login page | WPS Hide Login | Changes the default admin login URL |
| Backup | UpdraftPlus | Enables fast website recovery in case of failure |
| 2FA authentication | WP 2FA | Adds an extra layer of security |
| Spam protection | Akismet | Automatically blocks spam comments and bots |
6. Essential protection measures
- Install only strictly necessary plugins and themes, avoiding excess;
- Remove inactive or unused plugins, even if they are disabled;
- Keep plugins, themes, and WordPress itself always up to date;
- Change the default login URL to reduce automated brute-force attacks;
- Limit the number of login attempts;
- Use two-factor authentication (2FA);
- Use services such as Cloudflare for firewall protection, bot mitigation, and SSL/TLS encryption (Cloudflare, 2024);
- Perform regular backups and store them outside the main server;
- Monitor logs and access reports to detect suspicious activity early.
7. Conclusion
WordPress security is not a one-time task, but a continuous process. Adopting practices such as regular updates, trusted sources, strong authentication, and external protection services significantly reduces the risk of security incidents.
Investing in digital security is a direct investment in a website’s credibility, availability, and trust.
8. References
Cloudflare. (2024). Cloudflare security overview. https://www.cloudflare.com
HubSpot. (2023). WordPress security issues and statistics. https://blog.hubspot.com
Kaspersky. (2023). Vulnerable WordPress plugins and themes. https://www.kaspersky.com
Sucuri. (2022). Website threat research report. https://sucuri.net
Wordfence. (2023). WordPress security report. https://www.wordfence.com
WPScan. (2024). WordPress vulnerability database. https://wpscan.com
WordPress Foundation. (2024). WordPress security. https://wordpress.org/about/security/