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WordPress websites are subjected to approximately 90,000 hacker attacks per minute. These attacks are typically caused by weak passwords, outdated websites, and core file issues, among other reasons.
Aside from financial and data losses, security vulnerabilities also impact a website's authority and search engine optimization (SEO). Installing a security plugin is one way to safeguard WordPress sites.
WordPress security plugins come equipped with features to track changes, scan for malware, and restrict login attempts to prevent malicious attacks.
When selecting the best WordPress security plugins, it's crucial to consider the following factors:
Cost: Most security plugins offer a free version, with a premium version available for advanced features.
Features: Basic security features, such as malware scanners, two-factor authentication, and brute force protection, are typically included in WordPress security plugins. While these may suffice for most websites, eCommerce stores, for example, may require more specialized features.
Ease of use: Select a WordPress plugin that matches your level of expertise.
This article will outline the top seven WordPress security plugins to safeguard your website.
1. Wordfence Security
2. WP Cerber Security
3. iThemes Security
4. All In One WP Security & Firewall
5. Security Ninja
6. BulletProof Security
7. Sucuri Security
Why a WordPress Security Plugin Is Essential to Secure Your Site
1. Wordfence Security
Wordfence Security is a top-rated WordPress plugin with over 4 million downloads and a 4.7/5 rating. It's suitable for all types of websites and is available in a freemium pricing model.
This plugin boasts a user-friendly dashboard with impressive features, including a summary of your website firewall, a security scan for issues, and notifications for hack attempts.
Wordfence Security uses beginner-friendly language and provides a Help button to clarify the function of each feature. Additionally, it sends security alerts via email for suspicious activity and necessary updates.
The free version of Wordfence offers more features than most security plugins. For more advanced tools and support, you can purchase the Wordfence Premium license for $99 per year for a single website.
2. WP Cerber Security
WP Cerber Security is a WordPress plugin designed to safeguard your site against common security vulnerabilities. With over 200,000 downloads and a 4.9/5 rating, it's best suited for simple websites and offers a freemium pricing model.
This plugin's informative report dashboard displays the number of malicious activities mitigated, spam comments denied, and bad IP addresses detected. Additionally, WP Cerber Security has the best documentation and guides of any WordPress security plugin. The premium plans also include support from dedicated WordPress security specialists.
WP Cerber Security offers a free version for unlimited websites, as well as two paid options:
The premium version for a single website costs $99 per year and provides layered spam protection, automated malware scans, and professional support.
The value pack for five websites costs $399 per year and offers the same security features, as well as premium and developer support.
WP Cerber Security offers great login protection with features like a lockouts tool, two-factor authentication, and reCAPTCHA login security. It also has access lists to restrict certain IP addresses from accessing your WordPress dashboard and features while protecting login and registration forms from bots.
Other essential tools and functions available in the WP Cerber Security plugin to protect your website include:
Security hardening, which strengthens WordPress website security by providing options to disable features and protect the admin area.
Traffic inspector, which analyzes and blocks malicious HTTP requests using a sophisticated context-aware web application firewall.
Site integrity, which comes with a security scanner to check for known security vulnerabilities and recently changed files within the WordPress site, plugins, and themes. The WP Cerber Security paid version features an automatic cleanup of malware and suspicious files.
Cerber Anti-Spam, which uses a specialized engine to protect comment, registration, and contact forms from spam accounts.
3. iThemes Security
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iThemes Security is a popular plugin designed for large websites, boasting over one million downloads and a rating of 4.6 out of 5. It is available as a freemium option, making it accessible to users of all levels of expertise. The setup is user-friendly and straightforward, with various categories such as Site Types, Features, User Groups, Configure, Notifications, and Secure Site.
The dashboard displays data on malware scanning, banned users, brute force attacks, and lockouts, which can be customized to show only the necessary information. For users who require more advanced features, iThemes Security Pro is available at different pricing options based on the number of WordPress websites that need protection.
The free version of iThemes Security offers basic security features such as brute force attack protection and strong password enforcement. In contrast, the Pro version provides more advanced features, including scheduled malware scanning, two-factor authentication, and WordPress security keys. Additionally, this plugin offers unique features like file change detection, local and network brute force protection, user groups, and security logging.
File change detection notifies you of any file changes in your WordPress installation, regardless of who made them. The local and network brute force protection secures your website against malicious attacks, with the network option blocking bad IP addresses across the iThemes Security network of 1 million+ sites. User groups enable different levels of security for specific WordPress users, with options to use default group options or customize your own. The security dashboard allows you to edit and customize your WordPress security plugin dashboard to display only the necessary information, while the security logging feature helps you monitor all security events on your WordPress site, making it easier to respond quickly to a security breach.
4. All In One WP Security & Firewall
All In One WP Security & Firewall is a popular security plugin for WordPress with over one million downloads and a rating of 4.8 out of 5. It is best suited for small and personal websites and is available for free. This plugin offers user-friendly features and recommendations to protect your site, making it an ideal choice for beginners.
The plugin's dashboard is simple and customizable, showcasing the necessary tools to protect your website. It also provides a grading system that assesses your website's security, indicating which features to activate to improve your website's security.
Despite being a free plugin, All In One WP Security & Firewall offers an extensive range of features, including options to change default settings such as admin username and login page, making it difficult for hackers to guess. The plugin scans the WordPress core files and folders, highlighting insecure permission settings.
Key Features
One of the unique features of this plugin is the option to use the .htaccess file to set advanced security settings and firewall rules. For users who prefer not to use this approach, there are several other features available via the WordPress dashboard:
Login lockdown limits the number of login attempts and automatically logs out suspicious users, preventing attackers from compromising your WordPress site.
Registration honeypot adds a hidden field in a form specifically for bots, and if the field contains a value, then a bot has likely submitted the form.
Cookie-based brute force protection stops most brute force login attacks and reduces server load.
Copy protection prevents visitors from selecting and copying text from your website, which the plugin disables automatically when an admin user logs in.
Visitor lockout puts your WordPress site in maintenance mode to prevent visitors from accessing its content temporarily, which is helpful when investigating issues or doing maintenance.
5. Security Ninja
Security Ninja is a popular WordPress plugin that has been downloaded over 10,000 times and boasts a rating of 4.8 out of 5. It is particularly well-suited for large websites and is available in both free and premium versions.
One of the standout features of Security Ninja is its security tester module, which performs more than 50 tests to check your WordPress core files, MySQL permissions, and PHP settings. The plugin offers detailed explanations for every test and provides guidance on how to manually fix any security issues that are detected. Notably, Security Ninja does not make any direct changes to your site while performing these tests.
In addition to the security tester module, Security Ninja also sends email warnings when vulnerabilities are detected, such as outdated plugins or weak WordPress user passwords. The plugin also has a list of known bad IPs that it automatically blocks.
For those who need even more robust security features, the premium version of Security Ninja includes a website firewall, malware scanner, and event logger. The premium version is available in four pricing tiers, ranging from protecting one website for $49.99 per year to protecting ten websites for $249.99 per year.
Some of the key features of the premium version of Security Ninja include a core scanner that compares your WordPress core files to a secure master copy and a cloud firewall that contains a blacklist of over 600 million IPs known for malware distribution and brute force attacks. The plugin also includes a scheduled scanner that runs core scanner tests daily and an events logger that tracks every change in the admin area and front-end of your site. Finally, the white label feature allows developers and agencies to customize the plugin with their own branding.
6. BulletProof Security
BulletProof Security is a freemium plugin designed for advanced users and has been downloaded over 50,000 times with a rating of 4.8/5. The plugin uses the .htaccess file to enhance website protection and includes a one-click setup wizard to configure the plugin. The free version provides adequate security features for most websites, including a malware scanner, login protection, and error logging.
BulletProof Security Pro is the premium version of the plugin, available for a one-time payment of $69.95 for unlimited websites, and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Additional security features included in the premium version are auto-restore for modified files and real-time file monitoring.
Some of the plugin’s notable features include JTC anti-spam, Idle Session Logout (ISL), database backup, and MScan malware scanner. JTC anti-spam provides protection against bots attempting to brute force login via the WordPress login form. ISL uses JavaScript to monitor visitor activity and logs out visitors who do not perform any activities within the set period. The database backup feature creates a backup .zip file for your database, and MScan malware scanner scans core, plugin, and theme files for malicious code and malware removal. The plugin also includes a UI|UX debug feature that identifies plugin or theme scripts causing issues and can add security threats to your site, allowing you to remove or repair them.
7. Sucuri Security
Sucuri Security is a widely used security plugin for web developers and online businesses. It has over 800,000 downloads and a rating of 4.3/5. Although this WordPress security plugin requires more technical knowledge, it offers a comprehensive security overview and provides great control over your site.
The plugin scans your website daily for any changes and provides security recommendations. However, before changing the malware scanning frequency, check your server resources. Sucuri Security uses a firewall API key to protect your site from attacks, prevent malware infections, and block SQL injection attempts and brute force attacks.
The free version of Sucuri Security provides basic features like brute force attack protection and an anti-spam tool. If you want more advanced features such as malware removal and improved page performance, Sucuri offers a security platform with four pricing plans.
The plugin's key features include file integrity monitoring, security hardening, instant notifications for security threats, cache clearing (for premium users), scheduled tasks, secret or security keys for better encryption of user information, and protection against password guessing and brute force attacks. Sucuri Security also detects and removes SEO spam and ensures it will not reinfect the website.
It is worth noting that the Sucuri Security scanner feature can only find vulnerabilities in web pages and not core files that control the site's back-end.
Why a WordPress Security Plugin Is Essential to Secure Your Site
WordPress security plugins are equipped with a variety of tools and features to ensure the safety of your website. These commonly include malware scans, spam protection, and regular security reports.
Aside from adding an extra layer of protection to your WordPress site, there are several key benefits to installing a security plugin, including:
Brand protection - A security breach can damage your website's brand and credibility. Visitors may not take your site seriously if they encounter security issues like spam messages in the comment section.
Private data protection - Websites often store sensitive information about owners and visitors. It's critical to prevent hackers from accessing private data, especially for eCommerce sites.
Improved SEO ranking - Security attacks can harm a website's performance and ranking on search engines. By using a security plugin, you can enhance your website's SEO ranking.
Security notifications and updates - Many WordPress security plugins send notifications when potential threats are detected.
Login protection - Hackers often use brute force attacks to gain access to websites. Most WordPress security plugins offer options to limit login attempts and implement two-factor authentication to protect your site and users.
File repair - WordPress provides all of its core files on its download page, and security plugins compare them with your site files to detect any corrupted data.
Protected communication - Preventing spam messages and accounts from accessing your site can earn you credibility and better communication with visitors and customers.
More control - Security plugins provide features to secure often-neglected areas of your website, giving you more control over its protection.
Quick fixes - Different tools and features in security plugins can help remove security threats promptly, preventing more serious issues on your site.
When choosing a WordPress security plugin, it's essential to select the most suitable one for your website's needs. Using multiple plugins can slow down your site and even cause it to crash.
Can I Protect My WordPress Site Without Security Plugins?
There are alternative methods to safeguard WordPress websites, such as using a reliable theme and regularly updating the WordPress software. In the absence of a security plugin, there are several other techniques to secure your site:
Trustworthy web hosting: Opt for a web hosting service that offers additional security measures against cyberattacks and regular monitoring to safeguard your website server.
Password security and management: Use strong passwords generated by reliable password management tools such as NordPass, LastPass, or 1Password and store them safely.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate: Encrypt the data exchanged between your website and its users with an SSL certificate, making it challenging for attackers to intercept information. Hostinger provides a free SSL certificate with one of our hosting plans.
In this article, we have highlighted the best seven WordPress security plugins that cater to different website types. Below is a summary of each WordPress security plugin:
Wordfence Security: Suitable for all websites, Wordfence Security is user-friendly and has extensive documentation to help users implement its tools.
WP Cerber Security: This plugin offers a solid anti-spam tool and other essential security features, making it great for simple websites.
iThemes Security: With a straightforward setup, iThemes Security is recommended for websites with a higher budget to spend as most of its features are only available in the paid version.
All In One WP Security & Firewall: This free plugin provides many features to secure default settings such as the admin username and login page, making it ideal for simple websites seeking affordable security tools.
Security Ninja: This plugin offers more hands-on security solutions, and its notable feature is its security tester module.
BulletProof Security: The advanced tools of this plugin require more technical knowledge to use, but it offers a one-click setup wizard to help configure the tools.
Sucuri Security: Popular among web developers and online businesses, this plugin uses a security key for the website firewall.
Apart from these WordPress security plugins, other ways to enhance your website's security include having an SSL certificate and using a reliable hosting provider. The benefits of WordPress security plugins include improving SEO ranking, protecting your site's brand, and repairing corrupted files. Let us know in the comment section below if you have used any of these WordPress plugins or have other recommendations.
