Introduction
Most of the times bots and malicious attackers try to attack your website through your login page as it is the first line of defense one must come across when it comes to your website security. The stronger your password, the more protected is your site. The strength of passwords when it comes to the login page is the vital factor that determines your defense against attackers as stronger passwords are harder to crack. Adding SALT keys to your site is adding icing to the cake that is extra security to protect your passwords.
In this article, we are going to discuss what salt keys are and how they are important in protecting your WordPress site.
Table of content
Introduction
What are SALT Keys in WordPress?
Why use SALT Keys in WordPress?
How do I change my SALT Keys?
Use a Plugin
- Download the Plugin
- Enable Automatic SALT Changes
- Select the Change Frequency
- Save Your Changes
Manually changing the SALT Keys
- Navigate to SALT Keys API
- Open your WordPress Config file
- Replace the SALT Keys
- Save Your Changes
How often should I change my SALT Keys?
Conclusion
Closing
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What are SALT Keys in WordPress?
Are you familiar with the term hashing? Hashing in WordPress is a technique in which the password is encrypted into long alphanumeric values by sending it into a hash function. SALT keys are encoding tools that are used to secure your website password using hashing. They scramble your password into a string of characters that are meaningless and can’t be decoded without the algorithm that makes it harder for malicious attackers to crack it.
SALT keys are the default feature of WordPress and they are situated at the config file of your WP. Taking into simpler terms, SALTS converts your data into random strings that protect your WordPress site.
Why use SALT Keys in WordPress?
Whenever your sign up or login into your website, you have an option to be logged in for a longer period into the site. To make it possible, WordPress stores login data as cookies rather than storing it as PHP. Malicious attackers can hijack your cookies by various attacking techniques that can make your site vulnerable and increases the chances of being attacked.
To make it difficult for malicious attackers to use your cookie data, as an advantage against you, we use SALT keys as protection. SALT keys encrypt the data making it harder to decipher. It’s nearly an impossible task to unscramble or decrypt the algorithm to get the original password.
How do I change my SALT Keys?
Though SALT keys make your password hard to crack but they are not untouchable. This is the reason you need to change your SALT keys over a specific period, making it tougher for malicious attackers to crack your password,
There are two ways you can generate SALT keys,
Use a Plugin
One of the easiest ways to change your SALT Keys is to use a plugin, as generating new SALT keys are important to keep your passwords more secure,
These are the steps you need to follow in order to generate and change SALT keys,
- Download the Plugin
WordPress plugins enable you to directly generate and change WordPress SALT keys. You can just visit WordPress Plugin Directory, or go to your dashboard’s Plugin page and download and activate the Plugin. You can use a free WordPress plugin such as Salt Shaker that helps you encrypt your password and make it more secure.
- Enable Automatic SALT Changes
After activating the SALT keys, you can navigate to Tools and you will find your SALT key settings,
You need to select the checkbox which contains the option to automate SALT to make changes automatically.
- Select the Change Frequency
After enabling automatic changes to your SALT key, you need to set the frequency at which changes must occur. Using a specific period for changes to occur is vital for keeping your website secure. Using the drop-down menu, you can select the frequency of changes.
You must choose the frequency of changes to the SALT key as per your website needs. The more sensitive data you work with, the more often you want your SALT keys to change as you don’t need your site data to be in danger.
- Save Your Changes
After selecting the frequency, you need to set for your SALT keys to change now you must save the changes you did to get them in use. This can be done by selecting the Change Now button, it will save you changes for your automated process.
These are the steps you need to follow when you need to apply SALT Keys via Plugins.
Manually changing the SALT Keys
To change your SALT Keys manually you need to follow these steps,
- Navigate to SALT Keys API
If you don’t wish to use Plugins for changing your SALT keys, you can do it manually instead of by using WordPress SALT Keys API to get new SALT keys for your website,
All your keys required for your site are automatically generated. You just need to replace it with your config file by copying the entire generated code. Or if you doubt the process, you can copy each Key individually.
- Open your WordPress Config file
For replacing your SALT keys, you need to go to the wp-config.php file of your website where you can add new keys to the site.
Always keep in mind to back up your site while doing any changes with the php files or codes so if something goes wrong you still have a working model of your website. While you do this, use a staging environment and use FTP protocol so that you can review or edit the changes you did over a secure network.
- Replace the SALT Keys
After you open your config file, you need to authenticate the unique keys used for SALT,
The SALT keys in the files are your current ones and if you need to replace them with the new ones you need to safely copy and paste the newly generated SALT keys without affecting any other parts of this file.
- Save Your Changes
After you are done with all the changes, you need to save the file and close it. Your FTP will ask permission for the changes you have made and click yes to add the changes. Finally, you are done.
How often should I change my SALT Keys?
SALT Keys add an extra layer of security for your site passwords, but malicious attackers always find a way to crack such things if given enough time. You can disrupt any process of attack that takes place by just making changes with your SALT keys over a specific period.
The frequency you set over your SALT keys changing depends upon the traffic your website experiences daily. Weekly changes are considered most convenient and they can keep your site safe if it is a high-traffic website.
Conclusion
Storing passwords as plaintexts can make them vulnerable to threats, after which your site is in mere danger. Adding SALT keys to your site makes your password more protected and secure. Your salt keys come default with WordPress so you don’t need much effort with them.
Closing
We offer WordPress SALT keys in addition to your website. However, you are not untouchable, but changing SALTS over time can help provide better security for your website. You can boost your website security with the right host and we can be the right web solution to do so with our excellent plans and security techniques.
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