Keeping your website “secure” means protecting it from malware, attackers, data breaches, and dozens of other potential security problems. Website security testing makes this possible by helping you find any vulnerabilities in WordPress before they turn into full-blown problems.
WordPress is a secure content management system (CMS). However, there is always more you can do in terms of improving website security. Testing for security problems is a proactive approach that will help you prevent costly downtime and fixes. Furthermore, keeping your website secure can help maintain the trust of its users.
In this article, we will discuss the major steps of website security testing. The advice given here is for WordPress websites. However, most of these approaches can be applied to other types of websites as well. Let’s do it!
table of contents,
- Scan your website for vulnerabilities
- Check User Roles and Permissions
- See if updates are available
- Check WordPress activity log
- Test to see if your backup system is working
1. Scan Your Website for Vulnerabilities
By “vulnerabilities” we mean potential weaknesses in the security of your site. A vulnerability can range from an outdated plugin to using an outdated version of PHP, failure to block suspicious IP addresses, and more.
The easiest way to scan for vulnerabilities in WordPress is by using a security plugin. Most popular WordPress security plugins offer automated or on-demand security vulnerability scans:
To cover your bases, we recommend using a security plugin that also enables you to monitor file changes. These types of scanners tell you if any changes have been made to your WordPress core files. Typically, they also log information about when changes occur so that you can trace the source of a security problem.
If you need help choosing the right security plugin for your needs, we’ve compiled a list of the top options here.
If you don’t want to use a WordPress security plugin, another option is to take advantage of the vulnerability database WPScan, You can scan your website against the WPScan database using WP-CLI (if you have access to it).
We recommend automating this process so that it runs at least daily or weekly. This way, you’ll always be on top of any potential vulnerabilities on your website and be able to jump in and fix them as soon as they appear.
2. Check User Roles and Permissions
If you run a website where multiple people have access to dashboards and different levels of permissions, it’s beneficial to review them from time to time. From a security perspective, no user should have access to more permissions than the minimum required to perform their job or participate in the site.
To put this into perspective, let’s talk about administrator user roles. In WordPress (and in most systems), an administrator has the necessary permissions to change any part of the system’s configuration. This means you can install plugins, edit themes, delete content, change site settings, and many other things you don’t want regular users to be able to do.
As a site grows, it’s common to have problems with some users having more permissions than necessary. Imagine you remove someone from your team and they retain access to their accounts. If they are editors, they can remove or rewrite content, which is a huge security lapse.
To avoid this type of situation, we recommend reviewing user roles and permissions every few months (depending on how many users you have). Check that no one has permissions they shouldn’t have access to and change user roles or delete accounts as needed.
3. See if updates are available
Keeping WordPress and all of its components up to date is one of the most important things you can do when it comes to website security. If possible, you should check the dashboard every day for available plugins, themes, and core updates. The easiest way to do this is by visiting Update Pages in the dashboard
That page includes all available updates, including plugins, themes, and core options. Alternatively, you can enable automatic updates for WordPress core and specific plugins.
An automatic update approach can save you time. However, we recommend testing major WordPress updates on a staging site. These updates can sometimes cause compatibility issues with plugins and themes, so it’s safer to test them in a contained environment.
Manually monitoring your site for updates should only take a few minutes each day. This is the key to keeping your website secure as older software is more likely to have security vulnerabilities.
4. Check WordPress Activity Log
By default, WordPress does not offer an activity log. By “activity log”, we mean a record of everything that happens on your website. This includes login attempts, site configuration changes, plugin updates, and many other types of events.
Having access to the activity log is important for website security testing as it enables you to pinpoint any events that may be causing problems. For example, if you see in the security log that someone is repeatedly trying to log in to your account, you will know that a brute-force attack is taking place.
There are tons of WordPress activity log plugins to choose from. We recommend checking out our roundup of the top activity log plugins and testing them out to see which one covers the types of events you want to monitor.
Once you have access to the security logs, you will want to configure the plugin to notify you in case of specific events. This will save you from wasting time manually checking the log every day. Instead, you’ll only get notifications when something serious happens.
5. Test to see if your backup system is working
Backups are essential to the security of any website. We recommend setting up automatic backups for WordPress so you don’t have to worry about manually making copies of your site. Having the latest backups available at any time means you can easily restore your website should any security issues occur.
This only works if your backup system is fully functional. Depending on what plugin or backup tool you use, this can create copies of your site that don’t work. You may also not be able to store backups if you are running out of space on your server or third-party storage system (which we recommend using):
When testing website security, we recommend using a staging site to verify that your backups work. Choose one or more recent backups and use the restore function in the plugin or third-party tool you have set up and check if they work.
The restore process should display no errors and your website should function normally after it is complete. The most recent data may not be available depending on the age of the backup, but what is important is that it works in the first place.
Final Thoughts on Website Security Testing
Website security testing shouldn’t be intimidating. You can complete most of the procedures outlined in this article in less than an hour. The more often you do this, the more secure your website will be and the mental space freed up to focus on other aspects of running it.
When it comes to WordPress, plugins often do a lot of the work in terms of security, making the process even simpler. Here’s what you need to do to test your website’s security:
- Scan your website for vulnerabilities.
- Check user roles and permissions.
- See if updates are available.
- Check the WordPress activity log.
- Test to see if your backup system is working.
