How to Automatically Change WordPress SALT Keys

How to Automatically Change Your WordPress Salt Keys (2024 Guide)

If you‘re a WordPress site owner, security is likely one of your top priorities. With WordPress powering over 40% of websites on the internet, it‘s a popular target for hackers and bad actors looking to exploit vulnerabilities.

One important aspect of WordPress security is using salt keys to encrypt information in your site‘s database. Salt keys add random strings to make sensitive data like passwords much harder to crack.

When you install WordPress, it automatically generates a unique set of salt keys which are stored in your site‘s wp-config.php file. However, relying on the same set of keys indefinitely is not ideal from a security perspective. Periodically changing your salt keys makes it even more difficult for hackers to access your encrypted data.

In this guide, we‘ll explain exactly what WordPress salt keys are, why they‘re important, and most importantly, how you can easily automate changing your salt keys on a regular basis using a plugin. Keeping your salt keys fresh is a simple but effective way to harden your WordPress site‘s security.

What are WordPress Salt Keys?

WordPress salt keys are a set of random strings that are used to enhance the encryption of information stored in your WordPress site‘s database. Specifically, salt keys are used in conjunction with passwords and other sensitive data.

When a password is stored in a database, it is typically hashed using a one-way hashing algorithm like MD5. However, MD5 by itself is not very secure. Hackers can use techniques like rainbow table attacks to quickly crack MD5 hashes.

This is where salt keys come in. Before a password is hashed, a salt key is appended to it. Since the salt key is randomly generated, this makes the resulting hash much more difficult to crack using dictionary or brute force attacks. Essentially, salt keys add an extra layer of unpredictable data to sensitive information before it‘s encrypted and stored.

By default, WordPress generates eight different salt keys when you install it:

• AUTH_KEY
• SECURE_AUTH_KEY
• LOGGED_IN_KEY
• NONCE_KEY
• AUTH_SALT
• SECURE_AUTH_SALT
• LOGGED_IN_SALT
• NONCE_SALT

You can find your site‘s unique salt keys defined in the wp-config.php file in your WordPress root directory. They will look something like this:

define(‘AUTH_KEY‘, ‘U$B~63 t+3^qbC#(+=%9ww]QIFEIW|6[email protected]>GzNS1IkR‘);
define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY‘, ‘j BQR8H1GXC+);[KI^[O&`[email protected]&[email protected]@:0zkKCx|8NM)‘);
define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY‘, ‘N<l&2-i&[0I+3aEa<[email protected];_wMn$#[email protected]);
define(‘NONCE_KEY‘, ‘/[email protected]|DJb56oBtd]>X^[email protected]$W(!‘);
define(‘AUTH_SALT‘, ‘[email protected]%[email protected]!j<YQ(‘);
define(‘SECURE_AUTH_SALT‘, ‘[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]%^*S<$[email protected]%‘);
define(‘LOGGED_IN_SALT‘, ‘koMrurzOA+|L_lG5f–[email protected]‘);
define(‘NONCE_SALT‘, ‘P-koZZI&[email protected]@c)X!EPKpN‘);

While these random strings look like gibberish, they play a critical role in securing your WordPress database by strengthening encryption. The AUTH_KEY and AUTH_SALT are used to hash passwords, while the others are used for encrypting cookies and other data.

Why You Should Change Your Salt Keys Regularly

The WordPress salt keys generated when you first install WordPress are very unlikely to be guessed or cracked. However, using the same set of keys indefinitely is not ideal for security.

Over a long period of time, there is an increased likelihood that a hacker could use advanced cryptographic attacks to figure out one of your key values. If any one salt key is compromised, it can be used to more easily crack hashed data in your database that used that salt.

Periodically changing your salt keys makes it much harder for hackers to succeed with these types of long-term attacks. Each time you generate a new set of salt keys, it basically resets the clock on any hacking attempts.

For this reason, WordPress security experts recommend changing your salt keys on some recurring schedule. Opinions vary on the optimal frequency – some say as often as daily while others recommend every few months. But there is universal agreement that relying on the same salt keys forever is not the best security practice.

When you change your salt keys, it‘s important to note that this will automatically log out all logged-in users on your site, including yourself. This is because the salt keys were used to hash authentication cookies, so changing the keys invalidates those cookies. Don‘t worry though – you and your users will be able to log right back in with the same credentials. The new salt keys will be used to generate new secured cookies.

While it‘s clearly a good idea to change your salt keys periodically, the process of doing so has historically been a bit tedious for many WordPress users. Let‘s look at the default manual method and why automated solutions are becoming more popular.

The Manual Process to Change WordPress Salt Keys

WordPress does not have a built-in interface for changing your salt keys. The default process involves manually editing the values in your wp-config.php file.

Here are the typical steps you would need to follow to manually change your WordPress salt keys:

1. Go to the WordPress Salt Key generator page
2. Copy the block of newly generated strings to your clipboard
3. Connect to your WordPress site via FTP/SFTP or open the file manager in your hosting control panel
4. Download a copy of your current wp-config.php file as a backup
5. Open the wp-config.php file for editing
6. Find the section defining your existing salt keys (shown earlier)
7. Delete those lines and replace them with the new salt keys you copied
8. Save the edited wp-config.php file
9. Upload the new wp-config.php file, overwriting the previous one

As you can see, manually changing salt keys requires quite a few steps and directly editing a core WordPress file. For non-technical users, this can be intimidating and carries the risk of accidentally breaking your site if you make a mistake with the wp-config.php file.

Even for more technical users comfortable with editing files via FTP, manually changing salt keys is a hassle to remember to do on a frequent basis. Any time you want to change your keys, you have to repeat the process above.

Isn‘t there an easier way? Wouldn‘t it be great if you could just "set it and forget it"? Thankfully, the WordPress community has come up with some handy plugins to solve this problem.

How to Automatically Change Salt Keys Using a Plugin

If manually changing your WordPress salt keys seems like too much trouble, you‘re in luck. There are a few reputable plugins that can completely automate the process of periodically generating new salt keys and updating your wp-config.php file.

We recommend using the free Salt Shaker plugin. It‘s maintained by top WordPress security company iThemes and makes it a breeze to keep your salt keys fresh on a customizable schedule.

To get started, install and activate the Salt Shaker plugin on your WordPress site. If you need help, follow the step-by-step instructions in our beginner‘s guide to installing a WordPress plugin.

Once activated, go to Tools > Salt Shaker in your WordPress admin dashboard. You‘ll see a screen like this:

To automate changing your salt keys, simply:

1. Check the box for "Automatically change WordPress salts"
2. Select your desired time interval from the dropdown menu (Daily, Weekly, Fortnightly, or Monthly)
3. Click the "Save Changes" button

That‘s it! The Salt Shaker plugin will now take care of generating new salt keys and inserting them into your wp-config.php file according to the schedule you chose.

If you ever want to manually change your salt keys in between the scheduled changes, you can do so by clicking the "Change Now" button on the Salt Shaker settings page. A new set of keys will be generated and applied immediately.

Keep in mind that whenever your salt keys are changed, either automatically on the schedule or manually, all users will be logged out of your site as described earlier. This is a normal part of the salt key refresh process.

By using a plugin like Salt Shaker, all the headaches of manually editing config files and remembering to change your keys are eliminated. You can rest easy knowing that your WordPress salt keys are being refreshed on a consistent basis to keep your database encryption extra secure.

Other Security Tips to Use With Fresh Salt Keys

Automatically changing your WordPress salt keys with a plugin is a great security enhancement to implement on your website. However, it‘s just one of many steps you can take to comprehensively defend your site against threats.

Here are some other security best practices we recommend in addition to keeping your salt keys fresh:

• Keep your WordPress core, themes, and plugins updated to the latest versions
• Use a strong password and two-factor authentication for your WordPress admin account
• Install a security plugin like Sucuri or Wordfence to protect against malware and attacks
• Regularly back up your full WordPress site so you can restore it if needed
• Implement SSL/HTTPS on your site to encrypt all data transmitted to/from browsers
• Disable XML-RPC and limit login attempts to deter brute force attacks
• Disable PHP file editing in your wp-config.php file
• Change your default "admin" username to something less predictable

Using multiple layers of security controls makes it much more difficult for hackers to find a way to compromise your WordPress site. Refreshing your salt keys is one simple but effective tactic that can play a key role in your overall security strategy.

In Conclusion

Hopefully this guide has helped you understand the importance of WordPress salt keys and how to easily automate changing them with a plugin. While the manual process to change salt keys can be a hassle, plugins like Salt Shaker make it simple to keep your keys fresh.

Frequently changing your WordPress salt keys is a low-effort way to strengthen the encryption of sensitive data in your database. When combined with other WordPress security best practices, it can help keep your site safe from malicious hackers.

If your WordPress site is a critical part of your business or organization, it‘s essential to prioritize security. Taking proactive measures like automatically rotating salt keys can prevent devastating data breaches or website downtime. Consider making it a part of your WordPress maintenance and security routine.