Step-by-Step Guides to Building and Growing Your Website
Website Security covers protecting a site from common attacks and recovering when something goes wrong — SSL, two-factor authentication, firewalls, and limiting login attempts.
Most compromised sites weren’t hit by anything sophisticated — they were running outdated software or carrying an abandoned plugin nobody remembered to remove. These articles focus on the basics that cover the overwhelming majority of real-world risk, plus what to do when prevention wasn’t enough.
Most WordPress incident-response guides are cleanup instructions for after a hack. The real gap is deciding beforehand who can take the site offline, whether your backups actually restore, and what the 72-hour GDPR clock means once visitor data is exposed.
Wordfence, Sucuri, Solid Security, and MalCare all cover the basics well — the real choice comes down to where the firewall sits, how the malware scan loads your server, and what your specific site’s risk profile actually needs.
A website security audit is a systematic check of the things that quietly go stale after launch — old user accounts, abandoned plugins, login security, and whether your backups actually work. This guide walks through all eight areas, plus when a DIY audit isn’t enough and it’s time to call in a specialist.
Most WordPress hosts provide free SSL certificates through Let’s Encrypt, but enabling one is only half the job. Here’s how to set it up, force HTTPS site-wide, and fix the mixed-content issues that often follow.
Recovering a hacked WordPress site is a matter of sequence, not a single fix — isolate, assess, clean or restore, rotate credentials, patch the hole, then confirm you’re actually clear.
Two-factor authentication turns a stolen or guessed password into a dead end. Here’s how to set up the official Two Factor plugin, why its old FIDO U2F support was removed in version 0.16.0, and where a separate WebAuthn companion plugin fits in if you want passkey or security-key login.
The PCI compliance tier a store actually falls under depends on a checkout detail most owners never think about — whether card fields are a genuine hosted iframe (the lighter SAQ A) or embedded via Stripe Elements (the heavier SAQ A-EP, which is most WooCommerce stores).
Stop brute-force login attempts and comment spam by adding Google reCAPTCHA — or a consent-free alternative like Cloudflare Turnstile — to your WordPress login and comment forms.
Block specific IP addresses in WordPress using Wordfence, .htaccess, or your hosting control panel. A practical guide to stopping brute force attacks, scrapers, and repeat offenders.
Learn how to password protect any page or post using the built-in Visibility settings — corrected on exactly how long the access cookie actually lasts, and how post-password hashing differs from the bcrypt change WordPress 6.8 made to regular user logins.