Statistics reveal that 73.2 percent of the most popular WordPress installations are vulnerable to hacker attacks. Also, did you know, there are up to 90 thousand attacks on WordPress sites every minute?
A security breach can seriously impact business revenue and credibility. Most businesses use cloud computing solutions to store sensitive data (credit card and personal information) and improve their online presence. However, breach attacks pose a threat to this data, severely impacting the site’s SEO rankings and online reputation. Compromised sites also get blacklisted by Google, causing grave losses to the business.
Your WordPress site deserves to be protected from malicious attacks. Keeping WordPress updated, using strong passwords, and investing in reliable web hosting.
However, did you know that protecting your site against plugin vulnerabilities and brute force attacks can tackle 70 percent of your security problems? This is because plugin vulnersolution, and asking a cloud expert to take a full-site backup are the common security measures taken by firms to secure their sites.
Abilities make up for nearly 56 percent of the known entry points reported by respondents.
Choosing the Most Appropriate WordPress Security Plugins
Using appropriate WordPress security plugins will enable you to scan your site and files for malware on a regular basis and protect it from brute attacks. However, there is a vast variety of security plugins out there, making it difficult for anyone to choose the best ones.
Consider asking these questions when picking WordPress plugins to suit your security needs.
- How Many Active Installations Does the Plugin Have?
A higher number of downloads means the plugin is successful and popular among users. The most installed plugins are the ones that are maintained on a regular basis and work as advertised by the creator.
- How’s the Plugin Rated by Users?
The plugin’s ratings are a reflection of its quality and user-friendliness. Check what users have to say about the plugin before downloading it.
Moreover, every WordPress plugin page has a ‘View Support Forum’ where plugin users and developers share their feedback and report bugs. Going through these pages will help you get valuable insights about the plugin, enabling you to choose the best WordPress security plugin for your site.
- Which WordPress Version Does the Plugin Support?
If the plugin is not updated or maintained well for more than a year, it will not support the latest versions of WordPress. Further, outdated plugins carry bugs that may damage your site permanently. Therefore, it is wise to check the WordPress version it supports.
5 Best WordPress Security Plugins Tackle the Bad Guys
- Sucuri Security
The plugin is free for all WordPress users, offering the following security features:
- Security activity auditing
- File integrity monitoring
- Malware scanning
- Blacklist monitoring
- Security Hardening
If you desire to have frequent site scans, choose Sucuri’s paid version.
- All In One WP Security & Firewall
All In One WP Security & Firewall is one of the most powerful auditing, monitoring, and firewall Plugin WordPress users can have.
Besides offering an easy-to-use interface and decent customer support, this plugin comes with security features, namely login lockdown to prevent brute attacks, IP filtering, file integrity monitoring, and user account monitoring. It also offers a basic website-level firewall that detects suspicious patterns of the database injection and blocks them.
The plugin is free for all WordPress users without any premium plans.
- Wordfence Security
Wordfence combines powerful login security features and security incident recovery tools to offer valuable insights pertaining to the overall traffic trends and hack attempts. This plugin is quite popular among WordPress users as it comes with features like a full firewall suite, malware scanner, exploit detection, and threat assessment features.
Though the premium version is priced at around $99 per year for one site, the free version is powerful enough for small websites. Further, if you choose the premium option, the plugin creators offer lucrative discounts when you sign up for multiple site keys, making it economical in the long term.
- iThemes Security
iThemes Security focuses on identifying plugin vulnerabilities, obsolete software, and poor passwords, thereby preventing hacker attacks. The plugin offers a clean user interface with security features like file integrity checks, security hardening, limited login attempts, strong password enforcement, 404 detections, and brute force protection.
iThemes Security Pro is the plugin’s premium version (priced at $80 per year approximately), offering ticketed support, one year of plugin updates, and support for two websites. Some of the top features of iThemes Security are mentioned below.
- File change detection
- Google reCAPTCHA integration (login protection)
- Malware scanning
- Regularly Updates WordPress salts and security keys
- Password Security
- WP fail2ban
The brute-force specialist is completely free and can be configured to work with CloudFlare and other proxy servers.
Final Word
A hacked WordPress site can cause serious damage to business profits and reputation. Hence, it is advisable to include WordPress security plugins as a core part of your website security strategy.
Use the top WordPress security plugins shared in this post to protect your site from malware, brute force attacks, and other hacking attempts.
Author Bio:
Gaurav Belani is a Senior SEO and Content Marketing Analyst at The 20 Media, a Content Marketing agency that specializes in data-driven SEO. He enjoys writing about digital marketing, WordPress, security, and the latest emerging technologies. Connect with him on Twitter @belanigaurav.