5 Ways to Enhance Your WooCommerce Security
Nearly 4 million people rely on WooCommerce for WordPress to manage their ecommerce site. As a primary option for those looking to open an easy-to-manage merchant site online, there are a ton of reasons to love this product.
As it continues to grow in prominence, so too do the security risks attached to using such a well-known platform. If you’re looking to boost your WooCommerce security, there are a handful of steps you can take to add protection to your business.
A lot of the additional security measures we’ll overview might seem like optional steps to take if you’ve experienced security issues in the past. In reality, anyone in the ecommerce industry is prone to a cyberattack without warning. Instead of playing clean-up when a data breach or hack occurs, stay ahead of things with these five ways to enhance your WooCommerce security.
Two-Factor Authentication is a common way to add security to the login process for online platforms and apps. With 2FA, a second step is added to the normal password entry step of logging into an online account.
There has been a nearly 25% increase in individuals and businesses using 2FA for an added layer of protection. In many cases, a time-sensitive code is sent to your smartphone or email to ensure that you’re the one logging into your account.
It’s not foolproof, but it’s so low effort that it is a no-brainer to add to your WooCommerce and WordPress account as it can thwart many attacks. Even if a bad actor figures out your login and password, they won’t have access to your phone.
2. Use a Well-Reviewed Host
Choosing a host for your front-end is an important step of opening an ecommerce website. Ensure that when you go through this process that you’re choosing a well-reviewed and reliable host for your site. WordPress is compatible with countless premium hosts that are worth the cost. Ask us about Conversion Magic for WooCommerce, a managed WooCommerce solution.
When you’re searching through reviews for a host, be sure to check and make sure the clients offer SSL certificates. These help to safeguard customer information. If you were to get hacked and accidentally leak customer data to a cybercriminal, that can be a hard situation to come back from in terms of customer trust.
3. Add Extra Protection to Your Site’s Security Management
Every site that uses WooCommerce comes with the standard security management settings native to the plugin and WordPress as a whole. While these are a good start to protecting your business online, they’re likely not enough. If you only rely on the basics, then you’ll find that you’re leaving yourself prone to plenty of cybersecurity risks.
A good way to manage these risks is to ensure you’re taking advantage of extra security management solutions to beef up your protections. A great example is infrastructure as code. With this approach to online security, you can gain better visibility into your site’s security. Keep an eye on misconfigurations more easily and automate security checks to do some of the more monotonous checks for you.
4. Make Sure To Check Your FTP Settings
File Transfer Protocol, or FTP, is the method by which data is shared between two devices. While these protocols come standard with WooCommerce, you’ll want to make sure you check what the requirements and settings are for your site. You might be surprised to find that a hacker could access your site if certain permissions aren’t in order.
Each account with access to your WooCommerce site and WordPress backend has permissions in regards to what it can access. Ensure total security by allowing only your account to access things like the root directory and the wp-admin, wp-includes, and wp-content. Otherwise, if someone breaches your FTP, they’ll be able to make changes to your site and access sensitive data.
5. Schedule Regular Backups
Lastly, backups are a crucial way to protect yourself in the case of any issues on your WooCommerce site. If a hack occurs, you can easily restore the site after taking care of the issue with a backup. Otherwise, you’re left to start from scratch.
Thanks to great plugins available on WooCommerce, it’s easy to automatically backup your site on a regular basis. Some even perform backups in real time. Others can perform daily backups if that fits your needs a bit better.
Avoid Disruptions to Your Business (and Revenue Loss) with Comprehensive WooCommerce Security
When it comes to WooCommerce security, you can’t be too careful. Make sure to implement all of these crucial enhancements to your security to make the most of your site’s potential.
