{"id":3253,"date":"2020-05-14T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.canspace.ca\/blog\/?p=3253"},"modified":"2020-05-10T23:48:27","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T03:48:27","slug":"do-you-need-a-dedicated-wordpress-security-plugin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canspace.ca\/blog\/wordpress\/do-you-need-a-dedicated-wordpress-security-plugin\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Need a Dedicated WordPress Security Plugin?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WordPress has an unbelievable market share\u201460 percent of the websites on the Internet<\/a>, whether simple blogs or Fortune 500 sites, are based on the WordPress CMS (that\u2019s roughly 24 million sites). Its ubiquity means that WordPress actually has incredibly high security standards. If you occasionally hear something in the news about a WordPress security breach, it\u2019s in the news not because security issues are common, but because of WordPress\u2019s ubiquity and importance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of all the built-in security of the WordPress CMS, the hosting company can implement a number of safety features. At CanSpace Solutions, we already have a Web Application Firewall (WAF) in front of all WordPress sites. The WAF\u2019s basic job is to block all malicious traffic before it even reaches your website, thereby resolving the majority of issues before they could ever turn into a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of late, a number of companies have come up with plugins that add an extra layer of security to the WordPress platform. But do you actually need one of these?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our take on this is that if you host your site on CanSpace and are good about following some Word<\/a>P<\/a>ress security best practices<\/a>, then you can probably get away without any additional security software. For websites for whom security is of the utmost importance, extra security measures might make sense, but at these levels, security tends to be customized rather than via a standard plugin.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note:<\/strong> <\/strong>Every website should be using some kind of backup software, and we consider this separately from other security-oriented plugins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all that being said, if an extra security plugin gives you peace of mind, then it certainly doesn\u2019t hurt to try one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One recommendation if you want to dip your toes into the WordPress security plugin world is Sucuri Scanner<\/a>. This free plugin is highly rated and is recommended by some key WordPress tutorial websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the plugin is installed and activated, you can access all its features from the admin panel. One of the first thing\u2019s you\u2019ll have to do is to generate a free API key, which in turn enables a bunch of other features such as audit logging, integrity checking, email alerts, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the security features are accessed via the \u201cHardening\u201d panel. It has options for:<\/p>\n\n\n\n