WordPress is an online, open source website creation tool written in PHP and MYSQL. It is the most popular blogging platform and is built with a secure framework. However, this does not immune it against hackers. This is the reason using a WordPress security plugin for your site becomes an absolute must.
A security plugin can help prevent unauthorized access and log threatening events to your website. It can even completely disable access to the most important areas of your site by hackers and security pentesters. A list of some of the best WordPress security plugins have been discussed below to help you protect your website against unknown vulnerabilities:
1. All In One WP Security & Firewall
All In One WP Security & Firewall is a comprehensive, user-friendly and completely free WordPress security plugin that helps add some extra security and firewall to your site.
It is easy to use and understand and reduces your site’s security risk by checking for vulnerabilities. It also implements and enforces the latest recommended WordPress security practices and techniques for your site. It even uses an unprecedented security points grading system to measure how well you are protecting your site based on the security features you have activated.
2. Wordfence
Wordfence is a free and open source WordPress security plugin that provides free enterprise-class WordPress security and prevents you site from getting hacked.
The Live Traffic view feature gives you real-time visibility into traffic and hack attempts on your website. It also offers a Premium API key that gives you Premium Support, Country Blocking, Scheduled Scans, Password Auditing and checks if your website IP address is being used to Spamvertize.
3. BulletProof Security
BulletProof Security is an effective, reliable and easy to use WordPress security plugin that offers WordPress Database Backup and Protection as well as Brute Force Login Attack Protection.
It covers three major areas of security - firewall, login and database security. It has a one-click setup wizard to make it fast and easy to use as well as the .htaccess security filter to match malicious and nuisance attack patterns for maintaining website speed and integrity.
4. iThemes Security
iThemes Security offers 30+ ways to protect and secure your WordPress site. It locks down WordPress, fixes common loopholes, stops automated attacks and strengthens user credentials.
iThemes Brute Force Attack Protection bans users who have tried to break into other sites from breaking into yours as well as automatically reports IP addresses of failed login attempts and blocks them for a time period necessary to protect your site based on the number of sites that have been through a similar attack.
5. Sucuri Security
Sucuri Security is a security toolset for security integrity monitoring, malware detection and security hardening of your website.
The plugin is completely free and is designed in a manner as to complement your existing security layout. It offers numerous features including security activity auditing, file integrity monitoring, remote malware scanning, Post-Hack Security Actions, security notifications and more.
6. Acunetix WP Security Scan
Acunetix WP Security Scan is a free and comprehensive security plugin that scans your WordPress installation for security vulnerabilities and suggests remedial measures for securing file permissions, security of the database, version hiding, WordPress admin protection and more.
It removes theme update information, plugin update information, really simple discover meta tag, WordPress version, Windows live write meta tag, error information from login page, database and php error reporting and more from the source code of the page which can be used while gathering information before the attack.
It also offers a database backup tool to take a backup of your site and the live traffic monitor tool checks traffic in real time and scans your website to notify you about known web application vulnerabilities.
7. 6Scan Security
6Scan Security provides comprehensive enterprise-grade security with frequent site scans, powerful firewall, automatic backup, web analytics and more. It employs algorithms to find and automatically fix security vulnerabilities and the security experts ensure that the site's protection is always up-to-date.
The plugin comes with some special features like automatic vulnerability fix, automatic malware fix, one click installation, dual scanning, blacklist monitoring and much more.
The automatic security scanner protects your site against SQL injection, cross-site scripting, CSRF, directory traversal, remote file inclusion, several DoS conditions and much more.
8. WP Antivirus Site Protection
WP Antivirus Site Protection is a WordPress security plugin that removes malicious viruses and suspicious codes, detects backdoors, rootkits, trojan horses, worms, fraudtools, adware, spyware, hidden links, redirection and more as well as scans and analyzes all the files of your WordPress website including theme files, all the files of the plugins, files in upload folder and more.
9. Clef Two-Factor Authentication
Clef Two-Factor Authentication offers an interesting way to login to your WordPress site. You need to hold your phone in front of the WordPress login screen with the Clef app open on your phone. You can login when the patterns on both the devices detect each other.
10. Google Authenticator
Google Authenticator provides a two-factor authentication for Android/iPhone/Blackberry which can be enabled on a per-user basis. You can enter a username and password for security check or text, voice call or a mobile app for authentication. It also supports security keys plugged in the USB port.
11. Brute Force Login Protection
Brute Force Login Protection is a WordPress security plugin that protects your website against brute force login attacks using .htaccess. It blocks the IP address of the hacker after a specified limit of login attempts within a specified period of time.
It also limits the number of allowed login attempts using normal login form and Auth Cookies, manually blocks/unblocks IP addresses and whitelists trusted IP addresses, informs user about remaining attempts on login page, emails administrator when an IP has been blocked and even shows a custom message to blocked users.
12. VaultPress
VaultPress is a subscription-based, real-time backup and security scanning service that offers support from WordPress experts and provides the required functionality to backup and synchronize every post, comment, media file, revision and dashboard settings on its server.
These WordPress security plugins will help you secure your WordPress websites and blogs with their unique security features including malware scanning, exploit scanning, brute force protection and more. The premium version of these plugins offer more advanced security attributes with detailed reports and some of them even offer free customer support and security assessment. These plugins help in adding an extra layer of security to your site and blog.
