Website Security For Content Management Systems

Online security breaches have been national headline news topics regularly throughout the last year. WebWise Design & Marketing has always taken security seriously. We have used and stressed the importance of strong passwords, and we endeavor to keep the versions of the applications we use updated as quickly as possible.

As most of you know, websites with Content Management Systems (CMS), by their nature, present a far greater security risk than static websites. Simply having a user login facility creates a security challenge. Hosting companies and other companies that provide security products and services tell nearly everyone who will listen that, “In our experience most account compromises are due to weak passwords and/or outdated software.”

www.wordfence.comLast week we took another step in securing our client websites that were built on a WordPress framework. We have installed the Wordfence Security plugin on nearly all the WordPress installations we developed and manage.  While there are other similar products, we use and recommend Wordfence Security (we have no affiliation). Here are some of the features of the free version.

  • Real-time Security Network
  • Enforce strong passwords
  • Check existing passwords
  • Scan for DNS changes
  • Get detailed IP info
  • Track IP’s to their source
  • Block IP’s & manage blocks
  • Intelligently block networks
  • Block fake Googlebots
  • Block brute-force attacks
  • Scan Core, Theme and Plugin Files
  • Repair Files
  • Scan for known malware
  • Scan for hundreds of backdoors
  • Scan content for bad URLs
  • Real-time traffic shows hackers
  • Real-time view of crawlers
  • Includes a complete firewall
  • Rate limit rogue crawlers
  • View top content leeches

You may have noticed one of the features is “Enforce strong passwords.” By default, we use that setting for our client’s protection and recommend that everyone use the feature. Read our Secure Passwords Should Not Be Optional blog post.

While the free version of Wordfence Security does an excellent job across the board, we believe the investment in Wordfence Premium is a good investment in the security of anyone’s website. Take a look at it and decide for yourself. www.wordfence.com