Although WordPress core is very, very secure, incidents in the past caused WordPress to be mistaken as an “unsecure” platform. While that’s not the case for most core releases, WordPress can indeed be hacked because of plugin or theme vulnerabilities, or even security flaws of some hosting configuration.
To prevent this kind of nuisances, the WordPress community has developed many plugins focused on security. In this post, we’re going to review four of those plugins.
iThemes Security
A couple of years ago, a plugin named “Better WP Security” was one of the most popular security plugins available on WordPress Plugin Directory. It has a wide range of great fetures like security status reports, user banning, file change detections and even hiding the Login page.
Then, iThemes acquired this plugin and renamed it as iThemes Security. Leaving all the features free, iThemes added even more features that can be made use of in a “Pro” version, including user action logging, password expiration, WP-CLI integration and 2-factor authentication.
Don’t take my word alone and try all plugins out yourself, but in my opinion, iThemes Security is probably the best paid option for securing WordPress.
All in One WP Security & Firewall
Hey, I didn’t say plugins other than iThemes Security are garbage. In fact, All in One WP Security & Firewall can compete with all other plugins perfectly, even though it’s 100% free.
When I started checking out security plugins to talk about in this article, to be honest, I wasn’t expecting to see something so comprehensive in a free plugin. All in One WP Security & Firewall blew my mind with its set of features including securing user accounts, login improvements and monitoring, file system security, and a firewall. A freakin’ firewall in an all-free plugin!
Be sure to check this one out before deciding on what to use in your WordPress website.
Sucuri Security
Probably the most well-known brand names among WordPress security plugins because of their in-depth reviews of WordPress security holes and malicious WordPress themes and plugins. Seriously now, they rock at finding vulnerabilities in code–they probably saved tens of thousands of WordPress users with their reports on popular WordPress plugins alone.
In addition to their awesome help on patching security holes, they develop a free WordPress plugin which helps us get a hold on the security of our own website(s). They provide paid services also, but to me, the free plugin does the job extremely well.
Jetpack Protect
Jetpack by WordPress.com is one of the largest plugins in the WordPress Plugin Directory, and an extremely popular one–with a little help from Automattic, of course. It has more than 30 separate addons that can rocket your website (hence the name, Jetpack).
Like iThemes acquiring Better WP Security, a plugin named BruteProtect was acquired by Automattic and converted into a Jetpack addon named Jetpack Protect. It basically keeps brute-force hackers locked out of your website, and it does the job pretty well. All you have to do is enable the addon from Jetpack’s configuration screen and you’re good to go!
Wrapping Up for Today
Security is always a delicate measure in website maintenance, and while WordPress is secure out of the box, there’s always room for improvement. And these plugins rock at improving your WordPress website’s security.
Thanks for reading!