Website Security is an underrated concern when you are running a web site.

You’ve probably heard the frightening stories about large companies like Target, eBay, Adobe, Steam, and other companies that have endured big data violations.

You might not think it could happen to you thinking hackers have such bigger fish to fry.  Right?

Reality tells us otherwise.

Smaller sites are hacked just as often as large ones, with nearly half of small businesses reporting attacks.

Imagine the stats if we included more than just the companies that willingly reported being hacked.

Just taking the reported cases means that tens of thousands of sites are hacked daily.  Sadly, most don’t even know or understand that their sites are being used to distribute malicious code and they have been hacked.

If you are a WordPress user, you are lucky to be using one of the most secure content management systems.

However, because of its popularity, it also makes you a target.       

 

Sometimes, concealing WordPress is the perfect way to maintain your site safe from bots and hackers.

There is really quite a lot of discussion among security specialists and programmers relating to this practice.

To help you, we will examine the reasoning behind them as well as the advantages and disadvantages of both sides, and leave it up to you personally to choose if concealing WordPress is appropriate for your site.

WordPress Safety

WordPress is famous for being a really safe content management system (CMS).

WordPress’ security is just one reason for its popularity. WordPress is among the most famous content management systems online, used for tens of millions of sites. Even large sites like CNN, eBay, The New York Times, and Mashable use WordPress for their sites.

But as previously mentioned, WordPress does not make your web site invulnerable to hackers, and it can actually make you a target.

Hackers understand that most users don’t use all the best security features of WordPress.

Thus, their greater knowledge of WordPress can expose the vulnerabilities and opportunities offered by less-than-attentive website operators.

The most typical ways are with HTTP requests or brute force attacks.

Bruteforce hackers use software break in and to attempt to access your site by guessing at your password till they get blessed.

Frequently, brute force login efforts can be simply stopped by easy countermeasures like needing 2 step or CAPTCHA confirmation on login within their tracks.

These requests are made to use particular vulnerabilities that in many cases are due to insecure or old software, themes, or plugins.

 

Should You Conceal WordPress?

There is no universal answer, but let us get our terminology right: Occasionally folks mean different things when they say they are concealing WordPress.

What is normally meant by “concealing WordPress” is that you are trying to hide the reality your website runs on WordPress from any individual or bot that tries to recognize the CMS.

But concealing WordPress could also mean simply attempting to conceal which variant number of WordPress you are using, or altering permalinks, file names, subdirectories, etc. to conceal them from bots.

Truthfully, there is not any means to totally hide the very fact your site runs on WordPress. A technology-knowledgeable man who understands enough about WordPress is going to manage to find your CMS using any amount of means.

There are plenty of methods to find what WordPress variant you are using simply by being comfortable with all the differences between variants even if you are merely attempting to conceal your WordPress variant number.

Does that mean it is a waste of time to conceal WordPress?

Perhaps.

It will not help you to foil a committed hacker that is targeting you especially.

However, bots make nearly all hacking efforts, and you can have the ability to foil hacker bots by confusing your WordPress setup.

Only by altering some default permalinks, you might have the ability to secure your site against things like brute-force attacks, SQL-shot, and requests to your PHP files.

Concealing WordPress by confusing files and a few permalinks might be great security measure, but it is not your only choice, also it should not be the only action you take to protect your website.

There are a number of fundamental WordPress security suggestions without concealing WordPress, it is easy to follow to maintain your website safe from hackers:

1. Constantly keep your WordPress heart upgraded to the most recent variant.
2. Keep all your themes and plugins upgraded, cease using any themes and plugins which are no longer being upgraded, and delete inactive themes and plugins.
3. Consider installing an all in one security plugin like Bullet Proof Security or iThemes Security.

 

 

What is the best way to conceal you are using WordPress

You always need to be upgrading to the latest variant anyhow, if security is truly your target.

The WordPress variant number shows up in a large number of areas in several files, therefore it may be hard and time consuming to confuse them all, and not worth the attempt, because…

There are a lot of ways someone can learn what version of WordPress you are using even should you figure out how to erase every reference of your WordPress variant number.

You won’t be protected by confusing your variant number from bots. Bots do not normally check to see what version of WordPress you are using; they simply go right for the susceptibility they are targeting.

Should you maintain your WordPress core upgraded, it won’t be found by them. And when you are using an old model of WordPress, it will be found by them regardless of how nicely you make an effort to conceal your variant number.

Still want to conceal the fact that you use WordPress?

If so, we urge a superior plugin called Conceal My WP, available on Code Canyon. It certainly will conceal the fact by altering your permalinks without making changes to the real places of your files that you are using WordPress, and functions nicely as a general security plugin.

This plugin has several characteristics that improve your WordPress security hide:

• Changes permalinks of files (such as wp-admin) to hide them from bots
• Removes such as version number) from your headers and web feeds
• Alters the default subdirectories of exposed folders like wp-content
• Changes query URLs to keep from SQL injections
• Conceals files that could give hackers advice about your WordPress installation (such as readme.html or license.txt)
• Gives you the choice to disable special archives, groups, tags, pages, posts
• Hide My WP is, in addition, compatible with a number of other popular WordPress security plugins.

Hopefully, this article gave you some important things to consider.

If you don’t want to install the plugin or need further help deciding what security measures are best for you, be sure to contact us and let us help you sleep easier at night.

Don’t be the one who waits until it’s too late and your business/reputation are already permanently scarred by a hack!