Complete Checklist for a WordPress Security Audit

Are you trying to perform an audit on your website through WordPress Security to confirm that it is safe and secure?

The security that WordPress provides is unmatched. You can perform a security audit if you feel like something is faulty in your website. In this article, you will read about how to carry out a WordPress security audit and avoid your website getting down. Let’s get started!

What is WordPress Security Audit?

WordPress Security Audit is an auditor that checks the website for any faulty behavior such as security breaching. People use WordPress to look for any malicious activity, secret codes, or any unusual changes in the performance.

There are specific basic steps to follow when using the WordPress security audit, which is usually manual. However, if you wish to perform a much more detailed audit, then you must use the WordPress security audit tool, which works automatically.

WordPress security even provides online services so that you can directly evaluate the website’s safety and security. It basically isolates the suspicious activity and removes and fixes it.

When to perform the WordPress Security Audit?

Usually, any user can perform the security audit quarterly so that you can keep a lookout on the behavior of the website. When you do this, you can save a check on activity that has been happening on your website. Moreover, you can cover any loopholes that may become problematic in the future.

Therefore, when you find that problem, start the WordPress Security audit immediately, single out the issue, remove it, and fix the website.

However, how can you detect suspicious activity from the website, and what does it look like? Let us talk about some signs that may indicate that you are in desperate need of a security audit:

• The website has suddenly become slow and lags in between usage.
• The traffic on the website drops to a new low all of a sudden.
• You come across new accounts which have no proof of human usage, requests for forgotten passwords, and even attempt to login on to your email or the website itself.
• Certain website links start appearing on the site without your knowledge.

Now that you know what suspicious behavior looks like, you can perform the security audit yourself and secure your website from any ill activity.

Word Press Security auditing checklist

Let us now walk through some steps that you must follow to perform a very standard security audit procedure for your website:

Software Updates

Updating the software is essential for maintaining the stability of the website and keeping it secure from threats. In addition, auditing helps in patching any vulnerabilities and aids in looking out for new features to improve the website’s performance.

Keep the software, plug-ins, and themes updated so that the software can work up to its magic. Search Dashboard and go to the Updates page under the Admin option to perform these updates.

If there are any updates available, then you will be able to install them.

Look at the User accounts and passwords

Now, check the user accounts one by one by going to the Users option and then selecting the All Users page. See if you find any suspicious account which stands out of place.

For example, if you have a blog, then you will only see those accounts that you have manually added. If you find any different accounts, you can remove them.

However, if users cannot create an account on the website, then go to Settings and choose the General option and see if the “Anyone can register” option is open to all or not.

Also, add two-factor authorization to strengthen the web site’s security and maintain its stability.

Now, Run the WordPress security audit scan

Check for any malware present on the website by using scanners present online such as Is It WP Security Scanner, which helps you in finding out if there is malware or any malicious content.

Go through your website’s analytics

If the website sees a sudden downfall in the audience traffic, then you can confirm that there is some suspicious activity. Or, if the website suddenly gets very slow and starts lagging, views would drop consequentially.

Therefore, use Monster Insights to track any changes in your website’s traffic. You will be able to see the views on the page as well as the registered users that constantly move through your website.

Set the WordPress backups

You must set a WordPress backup plug-in that ensures that your website data has a backup available anytime it goes away.

However, if you do find that the plug-in is not set up or is closed, then you must know right away that somebody else must have done it. However, plug-ins sometimes stop by it, and you might have to keep a constant check on them and ensure that they are running at all times.

Perform an automatic WordPress Security audit

Your website could still be very vulnerable even after being protected by the above checklist of a security audit. However, it would be best if you still had a plug-in that would keep proper documentation of the activity of the users, differences in those files, any weird coding, etc.

Therefore you can download specific WordPress security monitoring plugins to run this process like:

WP Activity Log

It is one of the best WordPress activities monitoring plug-ins that keeps a check on all daily user activities happening over your website. Through this plug-in, you can check the users’ logging into the website, their IP addresses, and their activity over the website.

At the same time, you can check on all user accounts as well as turn events that require constant monitoring and simultaneous switching off of any events that need to be closed.

Sucuri

This firewall plugin provides safety and protection from DDoS attacks as the firewall blocks the activity that seems suspicious even before it comes near your website. Therefore, the server has fewer loads now, leading to better performance.