Looking for the best WordPress security plugins to secure your website? If so, you’ve landed the right post.
WordPress security is a crucial part that you should pay attention to. Hacking is one of the main threats every website owner faces. The fact is that cybercriminals are constantly trying to hack your site, through brute force attacks and using security loopholes.
According to the latest studies, 80% of the websites that are hacked every year are built on WordPress. About 40% of WordPress hacking is caused by flaws in the hosting server. The remaining 50% of attacks are caused by vulnerabilities in WordPress themes and plugins. If they are not updated in time, hackers will seize the opportunity and infiltrate your dashboard.
Criminals may monitor your activities by modifying WordPress files and inserting malicious code. It is not humanly possible to find such things in a timely manner.
If so, how do you detect dangerous security threats that could cause your online business to crash?
Via WordPress security plugins. They protect your websites against all forms of cyberattacks through real-time security monitoring and scanning. After activation, run a security audit to detect security loopholes on your site. Fix them at the earliest to safeguard your installation from being hacked.
Today, we’re going to list the 13 best WordPress security plugins in this post.
Let us get started.
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Table of Contents
- 1 Best WordPress Security Plugins 2024
- 1.1 1. MalCare
- 1.2 2. iThemes Security
- 1.3 3. Wordfence Security
- 1.4 4. All In One WP Security & Firewall
- 1.5 5. Sucuri Security
- 1.6 6. Hide My WP
- 1.7 7. WPS Hide Login
- 1.8 8. Limit Login Attempts Reloaded
- 1.9 9. WP Security Audit Log
- 1.10 10. WP Force SSL
- 1.11 11. SiteGuard WP Plugin
- 1.12 12. NinjaFirewall (WP Edition)
- 1.13 13. WP Hide & Security Enhancer
- 2 FAQ
Best WordPress Security Plugins 2024
As a WordPress website owner, you are lucky. There are several security plugins available to secure your business and data.
Here’s the list of our favorite WordPress security plugins,
1. MalCare
MalCare is the #1 security plugin for WordPress. It comes with a built-in smart firewall to block all kinds of attacks in real-time and protect data from being lost.
It automatically scans your site every day to detect malware, virus, and other similar threats. If anything found, you can remove them easily with one click. No need to hire a security expert to make a decision.
MalCare’s intelligent algorithm can identify even hidden security threats that may damage your entire network. It will also help you to remove them without affecting the rest of the files. Preventing brute force attacks is another advantage of the MalCare plugin. It will add a captcha field to your login pages to discourage bots from testing various password combinations and accessing your dashboard.
MalCare will monitor changes in files, tables, plugins, comments, etc and alert you through email notifications to take further actions. It is the most comprehensive WordPress security plugin to add an advanced security layer and keep hackers away.
2. iThemes Security
iThemes Security is another great choice to harden your WordPress security.
It monitors your site on a 24/7 basis to detect hacking attempts, malware code insertions, and file changes. The plugin will also scan installed themes and plugins for security loopholes and apply automatic updates to fix things.
You don’t need to review each fix manually. iThemes Security can block malicious bots, lockout users, and ban IP addresses automatically based on their browsing activities. This means that it will keep the website safe even when you are asleep.
To protect login pages, you should turn on two-factor authentication with them. iThemes Security supports popular two-factor authentication apps and can send email codes to confirm your identity. It also offers backup codes to lets you log in from any device safely.
3. Wordfence Security
Wordfence Security is one of the best free WordPress security plugins. Downloaded more than 4 million times, it is packed with a web firewall, malware scanner, and many other features.
It will scan your core files, themes, plugins, and other parts of the site to detect malicious code if any. Wordfence will compare your installed products including themes and plugins with those in the WordPress repository to make sure that both are the same.
Wordfence can prevent brute force attacks with login captcha fields and two-factor authentication methods. It can also block logins from known malicious IPs and or using advanced rules based on country, IP range, user agents, and hostname.
It is free with limited options. To unlock entire features, you should upgrade to the premium version.
4. All In One WP Security & Firewall
All In One WP Security is another popular free WordPress security plugin. It analyzes the security of your website and gives you a ranking score based on how you protect the site.
It checks for default admin accounts and helps you to rename them easily. All In One WP helps you to monitor login events and block users by IP address, username, agents, etc.
You can set a number of maximum login attempts to prevent brute force attacks on the site. If someone exceeds the limit, all-in-one WP Security will automatically block their login for the specified time limit. It also allows you to add a captcha system to log in and forget password pages to block hacking bots from visiting your WordPress dashboard.
Changing the WordPress login URL is another advantage of All In One WP Security. For that, no need to make changes to your root directory or files.
Enter a new slug and the plugin will do the rest. Either memorize it or store it in your personal file. You can seek the services of any password manager, such as LastPass, if necessary. This is one of the best methods to secure your login pages from being hacked.
5. Sucuri Security
Sucuri Security is another best WordPress security plugin in the freemium category. It offers malware scanning, file monitoring, security auditing, and other features to harden your website security.
It will check your WordPress installation files and compare them with what resides in the WordPress library to confirm their integrity. Sucuri will monitor all website events including small file changes and record them in a log file for your verification.
Sucuri scans your links with their own and third-party security tools to ensure that your pages are safe and not blacklisted by Google. If you are facing a sudden traffic drop, open Sucuri to ensure that everything is fine on your end. It can also apply one-click fixes to harden security in different parts like login, WordPress version, theme and plugin editor, and others.
6. Hide My WP
Hide My WP is a simple and powerful WordPress security plugin from CodeCanyon. It hides your WordPress and login URL from visitors to defend against attackers.
The plugin is highly efficient in blocking code injections, bad IP addresses, and users from specific countries. Hide My WP has a clean interface where you can monitor the latest security events including blocked IP addresses, top IDS attacks, and more.
It changes your login URL to a custom one and makes the default login address inaccessible. Hide My WP adds a smart firewall to automatically block all kinds of cyberattacks from the root level. It is affordable and easy to handle.
7. WPS Hide Login
WPS Hide Login is a simple security plugin to rename your login page easily. Unlike other similar plugins, it neither rename your core files nor creates rewrite rules. It simply makes your wp-login.php page inaccessible. So you should memorize or bookmark the new login URL. Deactivating the plugin brings back the page to its normal state.
8. Limit Login Attempts Reloaded
Limit Login Attempts Reloaded is a great plugin to limit login attempts on WordPress. If failed login attempts from an IP address or range exceeds the number, it will deny login requests of the range thereafter. One hour is the default lock time, but you can increase the time through plugin settings.
9. WP Security Audit Log
WP Security Audit Log is a free security plugin to monitor user activities on WordPress. It keeps a log of everything that happens on your website and thereby lets you quickly identify the security issues. The plugin alerts you on user registration, login, user roles change, and password change, file upload, plugin installation, post creation, modification, failed login attempts, and many others.
10. WP Force SSL
Google encourages website owners to add a trusted SSL certificate for improved web security and traffic. HTTPS protocol ensures a secure browsing experience for the users and no one can collect their data from the connected website. WP Force SSL plugin redirects your HTTP traffic to HTTPS without touching any code. Thus, it helps you to secure transactions and boost search engine rankings.
11. SiteGuard WP Plugin
SiteGuard WP is a simple security solution to fight against brute force attacks and common vulnerabilities on WordPress. It can be used to filter admin page IP address, rename login, login lock, login alerts, add CAPTCHA fields, disable ping backs, and others.
12. NinjaFirewall (WP Edition)
Ninja Firewall is one of the best firewall plugins for WordPress. It is able to protect targeted attacks coming from several thousands of different IPs in tandem. It will scan your core files very frequently, detects changes, and alerts you about suspicious activities.
The plugin automatically updates its security rules daily or even hourly and scan for malware, vulnerabilities, etc. Real-time monitoring of website traffic and user activities are other advantages of the Ninja Firewall. It will keep track of administrator logins, WordPress updates, theme uploads, plugin uploads, activation, etc.
13. WP Hide & Security Enhancer
The list of WordPress security plugins won’t complete without mentioning WP Hide & Security Enhancer. It is the easiest way to completely hide your WordPress core files, theme and plugin paths, admin and uploads URLs & many others. The plugin also blocks access to the default files in the WordPress database and lets you change the file names easily.
