When you start a blog, eCommerce website, or a simple website for your business, you need to invest a little bit in protecting it. By using security plugins you’ll be able to protect your WordPress site from hacking attempts, malware, and brute force attacks. In this article, we’ve hand-picked the best security plugins that you can use to protect your website.
Why you should use a WordPress security plugin
A security breach on your website can cause some serious damage to your business and its reputation. Cybercriminals can, for example, steal the personal data of your customers and staff, you can lose access to your website and it can even be taken down entirely.Â
WordPress itself already has taken some security measures to prevent security breaches. However, this is nothing compared to what a reliable WordPress security plugin can do for you:
- Monitoring of security
- Scanning of files
- Monitoring of blacklists
- Take measurements when you’re hacked
- Notifications when your website is at risk
- Firewalls
- Protection against brute-force attacks
- Scanning for malware
- and more!
You should start with quality hosting
First things first: hosting. Your website can only be well secured if your hosting is also safe. Therefore, we need to say that it’s important to choose a WordPress host that sees security as a top priority. Having safe hosting means that safety measures can be taken on a server level – without these negatively influencing your website’s performance.
The Best WordPress Security PluginsÂ
1. Sucuri
Sucuri is the industry leader when it comes to cleaning and securing WordPress websites. They offer a free plugin that hardens up your website’s security in general, sends email alerts to keep you informed of suspicious activity, and enables you to scan your website for security breaches. They also have paid plans that include firewall protection, which protects your website from brute force and malicious attacks.
2. Jetpack
Most people that use WordPress probably already know Jetpack. The main reason why Jetpack is so popular is that it’s built by the same company that built WordPress: Automattic.Â
Jetpack is not only great for security: it’s an all-in-one pack of almost everything you need for WordPress. It has a managed WordPress backup service, increasing performance, and security features. As a plus, Jetpack also has email marketing, social media, SEO, and customization options.
Jetpack is available in a free and a paid version. One great feature of the free Jetpack version is the Protect module, which is great in blocking suspicious activity. It includes protection against brute-force attacks and whitelisting. The free version of Jetpack is great for small businesses that haven’t been hacked yet.
However, the paid version of Jetpack is a lot more powerful when it comes to security. Starting from $99 per year, you can get daily automated backups, automatic spam filtering, site restores, monitoring of site activity, and malware scanning.Â
3. Wordfence Security
Wordfence is another great plugin for WordPress. The free version of the plugin has a powerful malware scanner, web application firewall, file repair, security alerts, and real-time monitoring.
A good thing about Wordfence is that it automatically scans your website for traces of malware, any patterns of infections, and malicious URLs.
4. Google Authenticator – WordPress Two Factor Authentication
Normally we don’t recommend installing a plugin that only tackles one thing. However, with Two Factor Authentication, it’s a whole different story: other security plugins usually don’t offer this. Therefore, it might be a good idea to expand your security with Google Authenticator or something similar.
What does Google Authenticator do? The Google Authenticator plugin makes it a lot harder for anyone to get into your WordPress website by adding a second layer of security to the login page. This means that even when a hacker is able to login into your WordPress dashboard, they would still need your mobile device to login.
5. Security Ninja
Security Ninja has been around for many years. The free version of the plugin performs more than 50 security checks on your themes, core files, plugins, password strength and more. Furthermore, the free version has a vulnerability scanner that warns you in case there are vulnerable plugins.
Security Ninja also has a pro version that has even more features to protect your website. Examples are firewall, a malware scanner, import/export settings, plugin integrity checks, security reports, scheduled scans, and more.
6. SecuPress
SecuPress is a new security plugin that is developed by Julio Potier, which is one of the developers of WP Media. SecuPress has a great free version and a premium version that has a lot of extra features.
If you’re looking for a security plugin with an easy-to-use interface, then SecuPress is a great option. The free version protects your website from brute-force attacks, blocks IPs, and has a firewall. Another great feature of this plugin is that it blocks plug-in visitors coming from bad bots. For the latter, other security plugins often make you pay.
If you’re looking for more, you can purchase a premium version starting at $59 per year. SecuPress Pro includes two-factor authentication, advanced user protections, GeoIP blocking, white labeling, PHP malware scans, and more.
7. iThemes Security
iThemes Security knows that WordPress users are an easy target for hackers and that securing your website should be easy. Both the free version as the paid version offer a range of features. We recommend you to choose iThemes Security Pro. The paid version of iThemes Security offers you Malware scanning, protection against brute-force attacks, file change detection, password enforcement, and more. Depending on what you need you can choose between the Blogger ($80), Small Business ($127), and Gold ($199) Package.
8. BulletProof Security
BulletProof Security is a great security plugin for advanced developers: it isn’t the easiest WordPress security plugin out there. However, it is a very effective one.
The free version includes securing and monitoring logins, back-ups, a malware scanner, and more. The premium version costs $69,95 one-time and is updated regularly, which is definitely worth it. The premium version includes features that you can’t find anywhere else such as BPS Pro ARQ Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (ARQ IDPS)
Web hosting is an important part of your website’s security
Your hosting provider can influence your website’s performance in many ways. A good hosting provider will not only make sure that your website loads fasts and has an SSL certificate, but will also do everything it can to secure your website. Some measures hosting providers can take are creating back-ups on a regular basis, monitors your website, scans for malware, and has DDoS protection.
