WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems in the world, and it's no surprise why. It's easy to use, highly customizable, and comes with a wide range of plugins that can help you add features to your website. However, some plugins may carry security risks. These risks can be mitigated by performing basic due diligence before installing any plugins and installing updates regularly.
But you can significantly reduce the vulnerabilities of WordPress plugins by learning how to evaluate and select quality plugins before installing them. Choose plugins only from reputable marketplaces like CodeCanyon, the WordPress plugin repository, or third-party stores you trust. The WordPress repository examines each plugin before it is available to the public and CodeCanyon also has its own review system. However, for the most part, we know that these commonly used and referenced WordPress plugins are safe.
They come with millions of downloads, high ratings, and add-on developers who have worked hard to build a positive reputation in the community by creating bug-free plugins and providing top-notch support. This blog post focuses on giving you information on how to test the security of WordPress plugins with a to-do list. It also explains if all the plugins you find in the WordPress plugin repository are safe or not. However, not even the most efficient review team can test the security of WordPress plugins and ensure that all plugins on a platform are secure.
It's true for Apple's App Store. It's also true for Google Play Store. And it's true for WordPress plugins. If the feature you want is unique in any way, the plugin may not have too many buyers in the market. However, this won't happen long.
With more than 27 million active WordPress websites, you're unlikely to find yourself alone in need of a specific application or solution. If this is a new listing, you should consider waiting a bit to see how early adopters or security researchers react to it. It could be a great add-on, but wait until you have at least 1,000 active installations. According to WordPress, only 37.5 percent of users have upgraded to version 5.5, their latest. At least 79.2 percent have been upgraded to version 5 or higher. That leaves millions of websites with old versions.
In the open source world of WordPress, news of a vulnerability in a plugin becomes common knowledge pretty quickly. It's a good idea to test security updates to WordPress plugins from time to time. WordPress itself might be safe, but plugins used to maximize your blog's potential could lead to cyberattacks. Here's What You Need to Know. Remember that, depending on what your WordPress host already offers, there may be no need for security plugins. Having to deal with bringing your site back online or fixing a broken feature on the site simply isn't worth it if you can verify the plugin's security that way. One of the reasons why WordPress is so popular is the freedom it gives users to add any number of features with the help of plugins.
This is great, since you're not just seeing how many people may have downloaded and then removed the plugin. The iThemes Security plugin (formerly known as Better WP Security) is one of the most impressive ways to protect your website, with more than 30 offers to prevent things like hacks and unwanted intruders. The second, support, shows how active a developer is in responding to any issues they face when using the plugin. The “Requires WordPress version” option will let you know how far you can roll back your version of WordPress to work properly with the plugin. All of these reasons make having a WordPress security plugin installed on your site incredibly important. Even if the low ratings come from a time when the add-on was new and still in progress, that's not a good reflection on the developer or tool. We suggest that you check your site before installing a new plugin so that you have a baseline to compare it with.
As for the free features, the plugin comes with a security activity audit to see how well the plugin protects your website. The add-on takes a different approach, which many consider to be more effective than what you get from some of the security suite add-ons listed above. Now that you know the risks of an unsafe website and the reasons why you need a WordPress security plugin, let's talk about the best options. If you're a WordPress user, you might be familiar with the team that created iThemes Security Pro, as they also created the popular BackupBuddy plugin and other great themes and plugins. But what about everything else? How do you know if that seemingly popular WordPress plugin (which would really do wonders for your site) is safe to use? Unfortunately, given that plugins are responsible for a high percentage of security breaches (Wordfence last put that number at 55.9%), it's scary to think that any decision you make to use one is a dangerous bet.
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