Would you like to learn more about how to make sure your WordPress forms are secure? Following security best practices can help keep you and your users safe from malicious parties when sharing information online.
This guide will cover WPForms security and practices you can follow to keep your site secure.
In This Article
Is WPForms Secure?
In short, yes, WPForms itself is secure.
WordPress stores all of your site’s data, including data from WPForms, in a collection of databases. Our plugin is as secure as the rest of your website, so if you follow security best practices, it should be safe from attacks by third parties.
The rest of this article will cover some best practices for securing WPForms and your WordPress site in general.
Keep WPForms Up to Date
We follow best practices when developing WPForms, and are continually improving its security.
When we become aware of a potential security issue, we work to quickly release a new version of WPForms to fix it. Updating the plugin is the best way to prevent third parties from exploiting known vulnerabilities.
Choosing a Secure Hosting Provider
Your web host is responsible for storing your WordPress site on a server that is accessible to others via the internet. How secure that server is impacts how secure your site is, so choosing a hosting provider that follows security best practices is vital.
Note: Looking for a high-quality hosting provider? Check out WPBeginner’s list of recommended web hosts for suggestions.
You can contact your hosting provider to ask about the security features it provides as well as what resources and support you’ll have access to if your site becomes compromised.
Using Third-Party Security Services
If you would like to add some additional security to your WordPress site, there are many third-party services and plugins you can purchase. They can provide a wide variety of security features, such as scanning your site for malware, creating backups of your site, adding a firewall to keep out malicious traffic, and more.
Note: Looking for a WordPress security plugin? WPBeginner’s list of preferred solutions has our top recommendations.
Enabling HTTPS
HTTPS is a secure method of transferring data. You can enable it for your site by installing an SSL certificate.
Note: For more information on HTTPS and SSL, see WPBeginner’s glossary entry.
This is especially important for sites that require users to enter sensitive information, such as payment details. In fact, our payment addons require your site to load over HTTPS in order to process transactions.
For instructions on how to switch your site from HTTP to HTTPS, we recommend WPBeginner’s tutorial on this topic.
Accepting Payments Securely
Processing payments on your site comes with a lot of responsibility. You have to ensure the security of your users’ payments details and protect them from data breaches.
Our payment addons help with this by securely sending payment data to your chosen provider without storing that information on your site itself. This means that even if your site becomes compromised, your users’ credit card details should be safe.
Note: For more details on all of our payments addons, check out the following guides:
Securing File Uploads
WPForms restricts the file types users can upload to the File Upload field to prevent malicious files from being added to your site. We follow the same guidelines WordPress itself uses to determine which file types to allow.
Your web host should also have security protocols in place for your server to prevent dangerous file uploads. We recommend reaching out to your hosting provider to ask about its file upload security measures.
That’s it! Now you know all the basics of WPForms security.
Next, would you like to learn more about keeping WPForms up to date so you always have access to the latest secrity patches? See our article on why you should always use the latest version of our plugin for more details.