WordPress: security measures

Your WordPress site suddenly stops working properly although you have not changed anything? Typical signs are a login page or admin area without design (plain unformatted text), missing buttons or file uploads that fail with an error. In that case it is worth checking the security measures of the WordPress Toolkit in Plesk.

What are the security measures?

The WordPress Toolkit in Plesk can harden your WordPress installation with a set of protective measures, for example blocking access to certain files or preventing scripts from running in specific folders. That is generally a good idea. However, some measures do not work with every theme or plugin and then block normal operations as well.

A known example: the measure «Disable scripts concatenation for WordPress admin panel» can cause the login page to be displayed without design.

How to check the measures

• Log in to Plesk and open «WordPress» in the left menu.
• Select the affected installation and click «Security».
• You will see the list of measures and their status. Revert recently applied or suspicious measures one at a time («Revert»).
• After each change, test whether login, display and uploads work again. This way you find exactly the measure causing the problem and keep all the others active.

If you get stuck, open a ticket with the address of the affected site and a short description of what no longer works.