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Best WordPress Security Plugins To Protect Your Website

Top WordPress Security Plugins 2
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Find out the top rated WordPress Security Plugins that you should be using to protect your website against threats and attacks.

We tested and featured some of the best WordPress security plugins that add multiple layers of protection against attacks on your website.

If you are a WordPress website owner and you are thinking of setting up security for your website but unsure of what WordPress security plugin to use, then this is for you. ☺️

Having a security policy is critical nowadays, especially for self-hosted WordPress websites as it is the most used and also the most attacked.

The first and obvious line of defence for a WordPress website is to have a Secure WordPress Hosting, that provides a lot of security features both on website and server. Backups, SSL, firewall, blocking bots, uptime monitoring, malware scanning, and DDoS mitigation are some security features you should look for.

At Convesio we do all the above.

Another line of defense for WordPress Security is using a plugin like WordFence and others that we have recommended below.

In this article we will highlight the most recommended plugins that we use on our customers website. These WordPress security plugins can keep your wordpress website safe and secure, fortified from hackers and malware attacks.

WordPress security is a serious matter for every website owner running their website on the CMS. More often than not, WordPress users get their website hacked and hijacked for no just cause. This is because WordPress is a very popular CMS, so it is mostly targeted by spammers and malicious hackers.

Once your WordPress website is compromised by malware, phishing or hacking, Google will blacklist your website. This can affect your website negatively.

Google blacklisting your website can affect your WordPress website SEO, even if you manage to recover from the hack or malware. You may have spent so much time (and money) on improving your WordPress website SEO and poof, all that will be gone at the snap of a finger!

A hacked WordPress website can also affect your website traffic, business revenue, and reputation. Hackers can steal user’s information for illicit purposes like spamming, identity theft, etc, and even distribute malware and unwanted bugs or contents to their devices.

And in some cases, you may be compelled to pay a “ransom fee” for your web content “preservation” or to regain control of your website!

Some persons don’t pay attention to their WordPress website security hardening because they either believe they are “too small” for hackers to consider or their Hosting provider will keep their website secure. While the latter may be true, it only holds true when you are using a reliable WordPress hosting provider with propee Secure WordPress Hosting, like Convesio.

Don’t fall into the category of WordPress users that believes that hackers are problems of only big companies or popular blogs and won’t pay attention to “a nobody” like them. In retrospect, hackers don’t really care about your business or website size or popularity. In some cases, they might want to hack your website just so that they can use it for backlinks.

If your website houses or complements your business, or you are serious about your website, then you need to make your WordPress website security one of your top priority.

Now not everyone is tech savvy, hence the need for WordPress plugins. WordPress plugins are there to help you add some desired website features or functionalities that you would otherwise have coded without coding. Just a few clicks here and there, and voila that feature is added.

Even so, there are WordPress plugins for website security purposes. With the right WordPress security plugin, you can still fortify your WordPress website and keep it safe and secured.

But one of the downsides of using the most popular CMS on the internet is the pletoria of WordPress plugins out there today and it can get frustrating trying to figure out the right fit for your WordPress website.

That’s why we are writing this article, so as to guide you to choose the best suitable WordPress security plugins for your website. After reading this article, you will become more familiar with the popular WordPress security plugins that you can install on your WordPress website to keep your data and users safe.

What is A WordPress Security Plugin?

Before we get down to looking at the best WordPress security plugins out there, let’s first understand what a WordPress Security plugin is and what they are supposed to do for our WordPress website when we install them.

A WordPress Security plugin is a monitoring system that keeps track of file integrity, failed login attempts, and performs malware scanning, etc.

A WordPress Security plugin ensures that your website remains completely safe and secure, always, so you can worry less and focus on growing your business or website.

So before choosing a security plugin for your WordPress website, you have to check if the plugin possess the following features:

Firewall: A WordPress security plugin should have a firewall that monitors all traffic on your website and filter out vulnerable bots before they can reach your website server.

Malware Scanner: The WordPress security plugin should be capable of scanning your website on a regular basis for malware and other potential threats.

Malware Removal: The WordPress security plugin should not only find malware, but it should also be able to remove them and fix the website if it gets attacked.

Login Attempt Limitation: The WordPress security plugin should also be to limit login login attempts when a hacker is guessing your login details and block brute force attacks.

7 Best Security Plugins for WordPress Website

While there are a couple of WordPress security plugins that might meet the criteria above, we’ve narrowed down this guide to seven (7) best security plugins that stand out.

The following plugins are the best WordPress security plugins that meet the criteria above.

WordFence Security

WordFence Security plugin firewall and malware scan is an all-inclusive WordPress security plugin and number 1 on our list. It is one of the most comprehensive WordPress Security plugins. It monitors attacks and locks out any login attempts after too many failed attempts. It can even lock out anyone that attempts to login with an invalid username. It has a country blocking feature that can prevent attacks and content theft from a specific geographical location. And it can match and block suspicious patterns and IP addresses.

You need to install and activate the WordFence security plugin from your WordPress dashboard. You can refer to our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

It offers the following security features for your WordPress websites:

  • A Web application firewall (WAF) that blocks malicious traffic before it attacks your website
  • Malware scanning of files, plugins and themes before they are uploaded
  • Two-factor authentication and login limits to prevent brute force attacks
  • Real-time live traffic and analytics monitoring.

The WordFence Security plugin is easy to use and set up, and all the features listed above are free. The premium version provides features like more frequent scans, spam protection and other advanced features.

Pricing: This security plugin has both Free and premium versions. The premium version costs $99/year.

iThemes Security

The iThemes Security plugin is number 2 on our list. It has proven to be one of the most trusted and effective WordPress security plugins among WordPress users. It is very good for protecting user roles, login details and hiding login URL.

The iThemes security plugin has an attractive and user friendly dashboard that shows all the available tools in the plugin. It gives you the power to enable or disable the tools you want from the dashboard. It comes with the following features:

  • File change detection
  • Brute force attack prevention
  • Malware scanning
  • 404 error detection
  • Two-factor authentication and strong password enforcement for all users
  • Limit login attempts
  • Lock out bad users
  • Automatic database backups
  • Security notifications by email

Unfortunately, iThemes security does not have it’s own website firewall and malware scanner. It uses Sucuri’s Sitecheck malware scanner.

Pricing: This security plugin has both Free and premium versions. The premium version costs $80/year.

Sucuri Security

Sucuri Security plugin is number 3 on our list. Sucuri is one of the most popular WordPress security plugins out there. It is a complete website security solution and comes very highly recommended with great users’ reviews online. It can protect your website from malware, brute force attacks, and other potential security vulnerabilities.

Sucuri is used by big and popular websites which means it can handle huge traffic and lots of attacks and malware.

Sucuri has a free plugin which might be okay for new WordPress websites on a budget as it can harden your WordPress website security and scan your website for common threats, but it comes with limited capabilities. The Pro version is the real meat of the plugin. It offers complete protection and it comes with the following features:

  • Activity auditing
  • File monitoring and automatic removal of malware
  • DNS change detection
  • Website uptime monitoring
  • Security notifications
  • Default HTTP/2 support for any website
  • Web application firewall (WAF) to keep your website safe against DDoS attacks.

The Sucuri website firewall can filter out bad traffic before it even reaches your server. And their DNS level firewall with CDN can give your WordPress website a superb performance boost and increase your website speed.

With the Pro plan, Securi offers to clean up your WordPress website if it gets infected by malware at no extra cost.

Pricing: This security plugin has both Free and premium versions. The premium version costs $199.99/year for the Basic plan.

 

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About The Author
Ahsan Parwez

Ahsan Parwez

Ahsan has more than a decade worth of experience in all areas of digital marketing. Combined with his knowledge of WordPress and Web hosting, he has helped companies scale in the WordPress ecosystem. As a Growth Marketing Manager at Convesio, his goal is to help educate prospects about what’s the best way to scale and optimize their WordPress websites.
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All In One WP Security & Firewall

Number 4 on this list is the All In One WP Security & Firewall plugin. Just as the name implies, it comes with great security features and firewall protection.

It comes with a security strength meter right on your WordPress dashboard that informs you on how secure your WordPress website is based on the security points score system.

It is easy to use and understand. It reduces security risk by checking for vulnerabilities, and by implementing and enforcing the latest recommended WordPress security practices and techniques.  Some of the features of this plugin includes:

  • Monitor/view account activity
  • Login Lockdown feature to prevent brute force attacks
  • File protection, editing, backups, and restoration
  • Firewall protection
  • File change detection
  • Front-end copy protection
  • Spam comment prevention
  • Ban IP addresses and user agents
  • Add Google reCaptcha or math captcha to the “forget password” form.

Pricing: This plugin is completely free. There’s no premium version, which means you get all it’s features without having to spend a dime.

MalCare Security

The number 5 plugin on this list is the MalCare security plugin. The MalCare security plugin is a top-notch malware scanner and removal that is very easy to set up.

This plugin is used to power the premium version of the Blogvault backup WordPress plugin’s security feature for malware scanning, malware removal, and website protection features.

It comes integrated with a complete website management module that ensures better security and website management to your website from a single dashboard, and notifies you if your entire website goes down so you can handle the situation before you start losing visitors. Some features of this plugin include:

  • Free cloud-based malware scanning
  • Integrated Web Application Firewall (WAF) protection to block hackers and brute force attacks in real-time
  • Remote malware scanning that won’t overload your website
  • One-click malware Removal
  • Captcha-based login protection

The MalCare security plugin can help you clean up after an attack with a single click before Google blacklists your website or your host takes it down, though that’s only available on the premium version.

The premium version also comes with uptime monitoring, instant malware removal, geo-blocking to block users from certain countries and White-label solution.

Pricing: This security plugin has both Free and premium versions. The premium version costs $99/year.

Patchstack Security

Coming in as number 6 on our list is the Patchstack Security plugin. It is powered by one of the most active communities of ethical hackers in the WordPress ecosystem.

With Patchstack you will be able to tackle any security issues before hackers  take over your website. The plugin allow you to monitor and protect your WordPress website and filter malicious

traffic. It is strictly focused on plugin vulnerabilities which is the major issue why 95% of WordPress websites get hacked.

The plugin can scan your website for vulnerabilities in WordPress plugins, themes and core software that are installed on your website, and send real-time email notifications if any security threat is found.

It’s a lightweight plugin and will hardly affect your website performance. It is easy to set up with an all in one place central dashboard. Some of the features of the PatchStack security plugin includes:

  • Scan themes and plugins for the latest vulnerabilities
  • Insecure configuration detection
  • Email alerts notifications of security report
  • Simple actionable suggestions to secure your website
  • Central security dashboard for up to 99 websites (via the Patchstack app).

With the premium version, you can identify plugin vulnerabilities, receive automatic virtual patches to the vulnerabilities, and get detailed reports on your security status.

Pricing: This security plugin has both Free and premium versions. The premium version costs $80.88/year or $7.49/month per website for the basic (Professional) plan.

Limit Login Attempts Reloaded

The number 7 and last but not the least security plugin on our list is the Limit Login Attempts Reloaded plugin. Just as the name implies, it is a different kind of security plugin created to protect your website from malicious attacks targeting your WordPress website login page.

This plugin not only blocks hackers, but it also offers cutting-edge features that will increase your website security, speed and performance. The plugin have the following features:

  • View who’s trying to access your website
  • Protect from future attacks by allowing or denying IPs
  • Optimize website performance by redirecting malicious logins
  • Receive email alerts when your website is under attack
  • Synchronize lockout data across a network of websites

It is a great plugin if you want to add an extra layer of security to your WordPress website.

Pricing: This security plugin has both Free and premium versions. The premium version costs $8/month.

Which is the Best WordPress Security Plugin?

Now that you have made it to the end, it’s time to choose the best one. After comparing these top seven (7) popular WordPress security plugins, we discovered that WordFence is easily hands down the best WordPress security plugin for your website.

Don’t get us wrong, the other WordPress Security plugins listed here are pretty amazing, and do what they are meant to do to a tee. But WordFence comes off as the best because the free version comes with all the necessary security features to protect and secure your website, without any significant impact on your website speed and performance.

After fortifying your WordPress website with the WordFence WordPress security plugin, you are going to discover that your website will be a hard nut to crack for hackers.

What About Convesio’s Secure WordPress Hosting Solution?

In the beginning of this article, we mentioned having a Secure WordPress Hosting as the first prerequisite for securing your WordPress website and also briefly mentioned that Convesio have all the necessary security solutions necessary for a Secure WordPress hosting. This article won’t be complete if we fail to tell you about our Secure WordPress hosting’s security solution we have in store for our current and potential customers.

Here at Convesio, we take Security very seriously. That’s why we use the best Security solution to secure our customers’ websites at the hosting level.  We use Cloudflare Enterprise for DDoS/SSL, and Patchman for Malware scanning/cleaning to secure your WordPress website.

Cloudflare Enterprise: Cloudflare provides a scalable, user friendly, unified control plane to deliver security, performance, and reliability for hybrid, cloud and SaaS applications.

The Cloudflare Enterprise is a global cloud platform that offers network-as-a-service (NaaS) to businesses of all sizes—making them more secure, enhancing the performance of their business-critical applications and networks, and streamlining remote worker access.

Some of the security features of the Cloudflare Enterprise includes:

  • Unmetered Enterprise DDoS mitigation
  • Role-based account control
  • Bot mitigation
  • Network acceleration and Protection services
  • Enterprise rate limiting
  • Keyless SSL
  • Audit logs

Patchman: Patchman is a malware and vulnerability detection and patching program. It is an automated vulnerability patching and malware removal tool built specifically for hosting providers.

Patchman automatically detects and safely patches security vulnerabilities found in commonly used CMS’s such as WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, ensuring that websites continue to function properly. On compromised hosting accounts, it can detect the uploaded malware and automatically quarantine it. It even has the ability to undo the automatic changes it has made.

Patchman comes with the following features:

  • Automatically integrates with cPanel, Plesk and DirectAdmin.
  • RPM and DEB packages for easy and standardized maintenance.
  • Scanning process optimized to be incredibly fast, lightweight and distributed in larger environments.
  • Easy configuration and maintenance through web application.
  • Ability for customers to view and undo any changes made by Patchman.

With our top-notch Security solution, you can choose to power your WordPress website with or without the installing or buying any WordPress Security plugin, and you don’t have to worry about your website getting compromised by hackers and malware.

For an all-rounded and foolproof security solution, we also have other security measures in place such as:

  • Daily offsite backups,
  • Server monitoring to detect website downtime
  • Intelligent Threat Detection
  • Reputation-based Threat Protection
  • Advanced Firewall Rules
  • Advanced Managed Rule Set
  • Rate Limiting
  • Human Presence Bot Detection
  • Form/Comment Spam Protection
  • Automated Malware Patching
  • Automated Vulnerability Patching

If you are not our customer yet, why not make a switch today and join our family of happy customers enjoying Conversio’s optimized and secure website service. It’s a decision we guarantee you will never regret. We will take care of your WordPress website and its security so you don’t have to worry about this stuff, and focus your time and attention on growing your business.

Just picture it. You waking up every morning with a cup of coffee on one hand ready to execute that new business ideas churning in your head to grow your business knowing you will never have to worry about experiencing a morning like Jim’s from the beginning of this article, because you can almost feel our CloudFlare Enterprise and Patchman constantly working around the clock to keep your website secure from DDoS attacks and malware. Contact us today.

Concluding Thought

Let’s recap. In this article, you learnt why your WordPress website needs Security and what WordPress Security plugins are, the best 7 WordPress Security plugins out there and narrowed down to the best WordPress security plugin for any WordPress website (that’s WordFence in case you’ve already forgotten). You also learnt that the first line of defence for a WordPress website should be to have a Secure WordPress Hosting that provides a lot of security features such as Backups, SSL, firewall, blocking bots, uptime monitoring, malware scanning and DDoS mitigation both on website and server, like Convesio.

We hope this article was able to help you find the best WordPress Security plugin for your website. Cheers!

Related Info
About The Author
Ahsan Parwez

Ahsan Parwez

Ahsan has more than a decade worth of experience in all areas of digital marketing. Combined with his knowledge of WordPress and Web hosting, he has helped companies scale in the WordPress ecosystem. As a Growth Marketing Manager at Convesio, his goal is to help educate prospects about what’s the best way to scale and optimize their WordPress websites.
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