Good to hear that you have launched a wordpress based website. But just like any other websites, your wordpress website is also vulnerable from malicious attacks. Now keeping your website from harm’s way is not that difficult. There are some cool tools available like Jet Pack that can help you in this regard. Nevertheless, if you can follow these simple steps, you will be able to keep your WordPress website safe and secure successfully:

Step #1 – Finding a reliable host: With the kind of options available, it might be difficult to zero in on a hosting company. Most of these web hosts offer myriad of features and they come loaded with suites of tools and all these make it quite tough for a person to come to a conclusion. In such cases, ask yourself the following questions so as to short-list a few:

What type of website do you want to host?
What are the features you require?
Is there a possibility to upgrade to access new features as you go?
Is the hosting plan that you have chosen optimized for WordPress?
Does the hosting provider offer 24/7 support?
How quickly does the hosting provider respond in case of a Downtime?

If you go with Jetpack it can notify you immediately of your site downtime if any, through its exclusive feature called Monitor.

Step 2 – Managing user accounts in a secure way: There is three-step approach to make sure the user accounts of your site are managed securely.

Firstly, you have to make sure whoever accesses your site in the role of a user creates and maintains a password that is really strong. For this you can use the service, “How Secure is My Password?” Alternatively, you can also use the Last Pass or 1 Password tool that helps you to create and store long, complex and unique passwords without any need to remember them. Putting your password on a post-it-note or notepad is a bad idea. In case you have sent your password to someone by email, Quick Forget is one tool you can use so that the message that you have sent will be deleted automatically after a certain time period or a certain number of views.
Secondly, you should think about the level of access you are going to give as and when you create user accounts on your site. Not everyone may need admin rights. Also, please note that it is a bad practice to use “admin” as your user name. Whenever a person leaves your company, you have to remember to revoke his/her access to your website. Audit your user list periodically to ensure everything is going well.
Try switching your site to HTTPS or make sure you switch on HTTPS for administration sake. If not, the users who are connected via the same Wi-Fi network will be able to intercept the usernames and passwords easily. If you find it difficult to do this, you can contact your web host for assistance.

Jetpack offers a Single Sign-On in order to authenticate users via SSL and the two-factor authorization of WordPress.com.

Step 3- Installing brute force protection: Brute force attack or bot net has become very common among hackers. These automated bots make it possible to attack all websites, irrespective of their sizes. A few simple tools can make your life easy by enabling brute force protection. Also, in case any malicious code happens to enter the filed on your site, you may have to enable some file scanning tools.

Jet pack has a feature called protect which secures your site against brute force attacks. Also it has come up with VaultPress, through which you can scan your files by going for one of their plans.

Step 4 –Conducting Research: Plugins and themes are to be used only after doing some exclusive research on the sources from where you download them. You may have to find out the number of downloads and check on the frequency of their updating, apart from going through the reviews. Also, see if there is adequate support available in case there is a problem. It is a good idea to go through the WPScan Vulnerability Database to check for any security vulnerabilities.

Step 5 – Staying updated: With time, every software, plugin, theme or even WordPress can have vulnerabilities. Therefore updated versions keep getting released in order to address vulnerabilities as and when they are discovered. You have to keep your themes and plugins updated to keep your site free from these vulnerabilities. Also make it a point to remove any themes or plugins you may not be using.

Jetpack has a feature called Manage, which manages all your plugins and makes sure they get updated automatically. You can make use of this to manage many sites and check for notifications.

Step 6 – Backing up your site: In case your site is compromised for some unforeseen reason and your hosting provider is not able to help you, keeping a backup of your files or database might serve as a boon. With the help of such a back-up you will be able to restore your site immediately. Automatic real-time backups work like an insurance policy.

Jetpack has come up with a paid product called Vault Press which offers various plans for automatic daily backups and real-time backups. It also has a one-click restore, which can give you absolute peace-of-mind.