Easily conduct a WordPress security audit with this 10-step checklist (2023)

WordPress powers over 40% of websites - that's the majorityCurrently popular online platforms.Imagine you are a hacker looking to maximize your results. Which platform will you follow?

WordPress of course.

Insight into the security of your WordPress site and knowing where you are is key to defending against the inevitable attempts to hack your WordPress site.

But how can we know how effective our WordPress security is at any given time? How can we be sure that we are safe and do everything to keep it that way?

We do this through regular WordPress security audits.

In this article, we continue to demystify WordPress security. We will provide you with clear guidelines on how to conduct a security audit and make sure that your website is optimally protected.

But first, let's explain what a WordPress security audit is.

What is a WordPress Security Audit?

The WordPress security audit is an in-depth analysis of the security of your WordPress site at any time. Identifies critical areas and screens them for potential problems, vulnerabilities, and possible intrusions.

During a security audit, you'll look for suspicious activity, malicious code, unusual performance degradation, and corrupted security configurations, and then take steps to detect the cause and fix it.

It is strongly recommended to schedule a security audit, but sometimes you may need to take unplanned actions when necessary.

What are the signs that you need to do a security audit now?

Security audits should be carried out at least once a month. It's the bare minimum.

We also recommend taking a few minutes a week to worklighterEvaluate your site to ensure any issues are caught early.

Here are some signs your site needs an audit:

you have received a security warning

Security alerts never appear on your schedule, so if you use a tool like Shield Security and receive a security alert (e.g. from a scan), you should act immediately.

You or another administrator may have modified a critical file on your site. That's fine, but you should still look at the results and delete them to be able to do it in a clean state.

Unusual website performance degradation

If you notice or receive reports that the site is not performing well, you should find out the root cause. For example, a DoS/DDoS attack or persistent attack on your WordPress login can drain your server's resources.

If you don't look at the logs, you won't know what's causing the slow performance.

suspicious user activity

Seeing a large number of new WordPress user registrations may mean that something is wrong or the configuration of your security plugin has changed.

Sudden floods of SPAM in comments can also indicate changes that need to be addressed.

The above 3 examples are just examples. The key thing to take away from each of these is that when something "weird" happens, there's usually something wrong, something that needs to be investigated.

The sooner you find the cause, the better your site's security will be.

How to conduct a security audit on your WordPress site

To simplify WordPress security audits, we have provided a clear task list. It is not exhaustive, but will cover the most important areas.

You can go through the checklists in any order, but we list them in that order because they usually reveal the most critical issues first.

As always, timing is key, and the sooner you fill in the gaps, the better for you.

A critical step before a security audit: website backups

always, always haveSite backup is available and completeJust in case your site encounters issues after making changes during the audit.

We can't overdo it. Backups are critical.

#1 Update your WordPress core, plugins and themes

WordPress updates are the most critical action required for website security. are forPrevent and fix vulnerabilities.

Always make sure your WordPress core, plugins, and themes are up to date. You can easily do this by selecting "Update" directly from your WordPress dashboard, or use Shield Security to do soautomation.

#2 Look at your user account and password

View WordPress user accounts on the Users > All Users page in WordPress. If you find suspicious user accounts, you should delete them.

If your WordPress site doesn't require users to create an account, you should do so"Anyone can apply"This option is disabled (unticked) in Settings > General.

It is also important to do this regularlyTrack inactive/inactive user accountsThen delete accounts that haven't been used in a while.

You can use ShieldPRO forAutomatically suspend inactive/inactive usersThis greatly reduces the risk of unauthorized access to your site.

#3 Run a WordPress security scan

The best way to check for malicious files is to use an automatic file scanner. With many different types, the ShieldPRO Security plug-in gives you everything you need to detect file changes and malicious code.

Shield Security scans your WordPress core, plugin and theme files (including advanced files) completely automatically, looking for

• Malicious code (using artificial intelligence technology)
• all possible documentsmodifying or manipulating
• all "unknown" files– is not part of the original installation files
• security breachin your plugin
• Abandoned plugins that may have security vulnerabilities (See also point 4 below)

Once the scan detects all suspicious files, you should review the results and accept, fix or remove them from your website.

For real-time file protection and monitoring, we strongly recommend running all scansas often as possible.

#4 Remove unused and outdated plugins and themes

Unused or abandoned WordPress plugins and themes can pose a security risk to your site. Good code requires maintenance. If developers opt out, you risk having outdated, incompatible, and potentially vulnerable code on your site.

These plugins and themes should be completely removed from the site and a replacement found.

The important thing to keep in mind with outdated plugins is that if you keep an outdated plugin and your code becomes increasingly outdated, you will struggle to keep your entire site up to date. New versions of WordPress, new versions of PHP, etc. will start to cause problems with old code, and since the plugin is outdated, you will be limited to updating many components of your site's hosting stack. Deal with abandoned plugins and themes early.

Shield Security uses its ownOutdated plugin scannerDiscovering these types of plugins helps you identify these risks more easily.

#5 Check WordPress website stats

Web analytics helps you track your website traffic. It can also be a good overall indicator of the health of your website.

Using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console, you can identify performance drops or sudden spikes and drops in traffic, and get notified if your site is blacklisted.Google search consoleIt can also gain insight into the status of your site and how it appears in Google search results.

While these tools may not directly report security issues on your site, they may indicate issues based on their secondary impact.

#6 Review the configuration of the WordPress security plugin

Security plugins play a vital role in monitoring and defending against attacks.

Your WordPress security plugin should provide a quick way to check your security status. When it points to something that needs attention, follow the suggested steps to resolve the issue.

Shield Security's overview page gives you a clear overview of your entire security setup, with everything important highlighted in red.

We strongly recommend that you use the review dashboard regularly to understand any issues that arise.

Additionally, using ShieldSecurity management functionwill ensure that the security configuration is not changed without your consent. This prevents accidental changes to the security configuration by unintended administrators.

#7 Review your current user permissions

Review and restrict access to specific user roles. Only site administrators have full access to your site's admin area.

The simplest way to achieve this is to use the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP). This is a security policy that requires you to restrict user access to WordPress. Each user role should only have access to those areas of the site that are necessary to perform its tasks.

We're going inFor more information on (PoLP), click here.

You should limit administrator access to only those people who need full access to the site.

#8 Improve the security of your WordPress hosting/server

It is important that the hosting infrastructure of your WordPress server is up to date and optimally configured.

The server admin is not for everyone, so there are many tools and resources that can help you. We rarely recommend managing the server yourself.

Steps you can take during a security audit include:

1. Rate your hosting provider
2. Monitor server resources to identify issues that may affect site performance or security. You canUse server monitoring tools, too.
3. Using ShieldPROTraffic speed limit function– An extra layer of security to protect your site from brute-force attacks that can overwhelm your server.
4. Evaluate the need for reverse proxy services such asYunyao- rarely seenSoI need it. If you're already using it, check your domain setup to see if new features are available

When it comes to improving your site's overall performance, we strongly recommend that you don't use the page cache. instead of this,Oto lista zazadYou can optimize the implementation for your website.

#9 View current FTP user permissions

FTP users can access WordPress core files, themes, and plugins. This gives them the right to inject malicious code into your files, add backdoors, or otherwiseSerious security vulnerability.

FTP is the ultimate admin access to your WordPress site.

Even if FTP users are not malicious, they can accidentally delete or modify important files, which can damage the site and prevent users from using it.

Review the user's permissions and make sure they have accessJustWhich is very much needed.

#10 Stay Secure: Strengthen WordPress Security

WordPress security hardening is the process of taking proactive steps to make your site more secure against potential vulnerabilities and general security threats. It involves implementing a range of security measures to protect your site from unauthorized access, data breaches and other security threats.

Make sure the security enhancement is included in the WordPress i security reviewHere is a list of key stepsbeginning.

WordPress security audit summary

A security audit is not a one-time event. It is a continuous review and adjustment process.

Sometimes you may make adjustments and changes and even forget you did it, only to notice the effect it had a few weeks later. By regularly checking your site's security and performance, you'll spot such issues and fix them before they turn into bigger problems.

The key to all of this is planning. Try to schedule regular time to go through the list and make sure everything is in order.

As we mentioned earlier, this is not an exhaustive list - you may have some important steps you take frequently that are not listed here. We'd love to hear and even update if this article is broadly applicable to most people. Let us know in the comments below.