Anyone who has ever designed, used, owned or administered a WordPress-based website should be well aware that keeping your site safe and secure is of paramount importance. Indeed, it’s the very popularity of WordPress—more than 25 percent of the world’s bloggers, corporations and e-tail portals use the site, which translates to tens of millions of pages—that makes these sites such attractive targets for hackers. After all, those clever enough to find a breach or leak literally have a plethora of opportunities to wreak havoc and profit big.
Unfortunately, far too many WordPress sites are still lacking in strong security measures that go beyond what is provided with the base version. That’s why installing an extra layer of security via a plugin is so important: besides keeping your data—and the information of your users, clients and customers—protected, it also ensures that, if your site is comprised, you can get back up and running quickly and with a minimum amount of effort.
Here’s a quick rundown on some of the best security plugins that every WordPress user should pay attention to and utilize.
- If having one way to protect your information is good, imagine what having 30 ways can do to safeguard your site? iThemes Security does just that, from two-factor identification to protections for brute force attacks and lock-outs of any user attempting incorrect log-ins. It also offers multiple secure passwords for different user roles, such as administrator, designer etc., and keeps tabs on the core operating system for the platform by checking for any changes that may signal a hack.
- All-In-One security and firewall is great for the less tech-minded among us, offering a very user-friendly and easy to understand interface. The program protects your website by constantly checking for vulnerabilities and implements the most up-to-date security features when they’re available. It even puts a cool little “security meter” on your dashboard that lets you know how secure your site is at any given time.
- With a name like BulletProof security, you know it’s at least worth checking out. A single click program, it guards against nearly all the existing code injection hacks (such as RFI, XSS, CRLF and SQL) and also keeps track of log-in attempts. A very intuitive plugin, it even monitors email alerts related to various user interactions and reacts when it detects malicious activity. And if all that isn’t enough, the “Pro” version contains even more complex and enhanced features and options.
- Available within the WordPress catalog of plugins, Sucuri includes a wide range of feature and options, including constant scanning for malware and monitoring of blacklists. It also tracks all activity on your site, especially when someone logs in or when you make edits to your pages: therefore, if there is a breach, you can check user logs to determine the culprit. And lastly, it works well with other security plugins by supporting add-on firewalls and file monitoring.
- One of the most well-known security plugins is Wordfence, which works by first determining if your site is compromised or infected once you launch the program. Like the others, it includes safeguards at log-in, constant scanning, IP blocking and more and works with the core WordPress firewall. There’s also a premium version that includes two-factor authentication and other features.
- Lastly, Vault Press, available via a premium subscription service only, was actually built by the same folks who designed WordPress itself. The program gives users an incredibly easy way to back up their site daily or in real-time, scans and removes any and all threats found within your files and more. There are two bundle packages available: Backup only, Security only or both.
