WooCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce solutions to build online stores with.
It has a vast, 48 million downloads and powers over 28% of all eCommerce sites.
This popularity also makes it a prime target for hackers, which you may want to know if you are running or planning on building a WooCommerce store. If you are a WooCommerce store owner, you may want to know some things that can be done to keep your store secure.
Although WordPress and WooCommerce come with built-in features, practicing some basic security measures would add an extra layer of security on your WooCommerce store.
In this blog some of the important and most effective security tips that you can apply on your website to provide your WooCommerce customers with a safe and secure shopping environment at your site.
Choose a Reliable Hosting Provider
Choosing a reliable and secure hosting provider is the first step to ensuring the security of your WooCommerce site. Security should be one of the important things that you should look for in your hosting provider.
To understand how your potential host handles security, you can make use of the below checklist to decide if they are capable enough or not.
Enable Two-factor Authentication (2FA)
Implementing two-factor authentication is another big step towards securing your WooCommerce store. Once you enable this feature in your WordPress dashboard, whoever attempts to log in to the website will need to provide their credentials as well as a secure password that is generated in real-time. This could be a one-time password sent to a mobile number or email ID.
Add SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificate
You must enable an SSL certificate on your web server in order to encrypt the connection for your visitors and secure your website. You have Know that if you do not have SSL active for your site, you will have to configure a few things before switching from HTTP to HTTPS.
Limit Login Attempts
The brute force attack is one of the most common methods used by hackers to break into your website. This sort of attack will succeed if carried out by bots since bots are capable of trying thousands of combinations in just a second. Even those strong passwords you created may not stand such attacks. Hence, the best way to avoid such attacks is by limiting the failed login attempts on.
WordPress’s default setting allows its users to login as many times as they want. You can look for some other ways to enable this feature for your WooCommerce store.
Keep Your Site Updated
WordPress and WooCommerce release frequent updates to solve the security issues in older versions and add new features. As WooCommerce is built on WordPress, a given WooCommerce site is exactly as secure as the WordPress installation itself. This points to the need to update your WordPress version when a new update is released.
If you are currently running on WordPress 4.3.x and the latest version is 4.4, it’s not compulsory to update to the new version. However, if a 4.4.2 is released, you have to update to this version asap since the last digit “2” indicates that it’s a security update.
Perform Regular WooCommerce Backups
Unlike regular website, losing your WooCommerce store’s data can have disastrous effects as it contains your customer data, order data, etc., that have a huge impact on your website’s revenue. Thus it’s necessary to keep a backup of your store to avoid the risk of losing all your precious WooCommerce data.
You can make website backups in 3 ways; manually, with automatic backups via plugins, and by your host.
If you’re not completely comfortable with manual backup or if you are looking for more storage locations than WordPress provides, plugins such as UpdraftPlus are a great option. It allows scheduled backups with its free version itself.
Enable Web Application Firewall
A web application firewall is a software program that helps protect your website against any malicious traffic before it even reaches your website. There are two types of firewalls: DNS level website firewall and an application-level firewall. You can add a firewall to your website by using one of the WordPress plugins.
Wordfence is a WordPress plugin that can add a firewall to your website. The Wordfence team recently thwarted an attack campaign that targeted 1.3 million sites and aimed at stealing database credentials by downloading their configuration files. If you are running a WooCommerce store, it is important to have a firewall in place to protect it from any sort of attacks.
Choose your Plugins and Themes Wisely
Undetected plugins and themes can be exploited by attackers to break into your website. You should make it a point to choose only the plugins and themes that are regularly updated. Since free versions may not be updated as frequently as their premium versions, it’s best to go for premium versions to ensure updates and support.
Use a Secure Database Password and Change Database Prefix
As already mentioned, attacks on your website’s database are increasing. To secure your MySQL database password and username change them for a stronger one that is difficult to guess. Also, change the default WordPress database prefix which makes it easier for hackers to guess the table name.
Use a Security Plugin
If you are unable to manually handle all the security requirements of your store, you can use a plugin to manage your site security. A security plugin typically comes with some of the important features such as web application firewall, malware scanner, site security activity auditing, limited login attempts and blacklist monitoring.
Here are some of the most popular security plugins for your WordPress-WooCommerce website. WordfenceSucuri, All in one WP Security, iThemes Security
The plugins available at this site are broken down into two main categories : Membership and eCommerce. Each of these categories is broken down further into subcategories, which makes it easier to find the plugin that you need.
Practice the Principle of Least Privilege
The principle of least privilege is the idea that any user should have only the bare minimum privileges necessary to perform its function. This eliminates misuse of user privileges and reduces damage should an attack occur.
Disable Pingbacks and Trackbacks
Pingbacks and trackbacks are methods for letting blogs know that you’ve linked to them. But it’s best not to have this feature enabled in your WooCommerce store because it can cause your website to get a huge amount of spam.
You can easily disable this in your website by deselecting the feature by navigating to Settings > Discussions from your WordPress dashboard.
Use Secure Payment Gateways
WooCommerce stores rely on payment gateways to keep their online business running smoothly. Payment gateways protect your customers’ and your data from cyber attacks. Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, etc., are the most secure options for payment gateways.
Protect your WooCommerce site with the Universe Ecommerce development company
Your WooCommerce site should be the safest place in the world for your customers. Secure your WooCommerce store to get more customers.
If you are careful and use all the proper precautions, then no hacker can hack your site. The Universe Woocommerce Development Company will help you to keep your site safe.
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