WordPress Website Security
One of the frequently asked questions is “How secure is WordPress”. If I have a WordPress website what is the risk of being “hacked!”
There is a very good article on this subject posted by Wordfence on their blog. You can read this in full at https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2018/04/is-wordpress-secure/ Wordfence offer a free or paid security plugin for WordPress sites and I always recommend including the free version as a minimum level of protection.
If you do read this article you will note that one of the biggest risks to any website is failing to keep it up to date. With WordPress, that means both the core code of the CMS and all the Plugins used to make the site function.
Why Update?
One of the reasons why WordPress is secure is because of the large number of developers who are constantly reviewing the code to ensure it is bug free and that if there is any is any risk a patch or update is issued as quickly as possible and before hackers have the opportunity to exploit it.
This results in fairly frequent updates to the WordPress core that often requires plugins to be updated as well to remain compatible. This is, in addition to major updates which take place as the core code is improved and new features are added to improve the way sites work and can be displayed. Another of the advantages of using WordFence is that this plugin tells you when there are updates to either WordPress or plugins, so you don’t have to constantly check yourself.
Maintaining A Website
Maintaining a website fully up to date is a task that, unfortunately, many website owners overlook. Even if they are aware of updates, the time needed to login to the Dashboard and update one or more plugins often takes a back seat to running a business and can easily be missed or postponed and subsequently forgotten. Where WordPress core updates are concerned the warning to “take a backup of the site before updating” can frighten people even more. Very often the attitude is “well the site is working ok so why risk a problem updating”.
That is when a site becomes vulnerable. Hackers look for outdated sites with known security issues and can use them for a variety of nefarious purposes. Quite apart from risking having the site taken off-line by the hosting company an infected site can suffer a downgrading or penalty from Google if malware is found. Then comes the cost of cleaning the site and getting it back online and regaining the lost credibility.
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WordPress Core and Plugin Updating Service.
RepDomWebs now offers a service to WordPress site owners where we will do all the updating and site maintenance in one package. We are not the first to offer this by any means and probably not the last either. We have seen offers from several companies priced at anything from $25 to $30 a month. We are offering this at $20 a month with a 10% discount if paid annually in advance.
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Hacked Website Cleaning and Restoration
Our second service is for those unfortunate to have suffered a hack. Website cleaning services are not cheap, usually running into $200 and upwards. We will carry out a FREE review of your site and depending on the level of the hack quote you for both cleaning and restoring the site. We will also recommend adding security plugins to protect you from further attacks.
From our experience with other clients we can normally carry out this work for around $100 to $150 dollars. But with a free assessment you have nothing to lose in asking us to review the damage and provide you with a quote.
For either, or both, these new facilities please use our website contact form to get in touch.