With rising cyber threats, keeping your site secure is important. In this article, we’ll explore why securing your WordPress site is vital and highlight the 10 best free wordpress security plugins.
These plugins offer vital protections like firewalls and malware scans. They are perfect for both beginners and experts. Discover how to safeguard your WordPress site in today’s ever-changing online environment.
What is a WordPress security plugin?
A WordPress security plugin helps protect your website from threats like malware, brute force attacks, and unauthorized logins. It includes features like firewalls, malware scans, and login safeguards. Installing this plugin makes your site safer, letting you focus on creating content without worrying about cyberattacks.
10 best free wordpress security plugins
WordPress security plugins protect your website from hackers, malware, and online threats. With cyberattacks on the rise, no website is completely safe, so it’s important for website owners to take action and secure their sites.
Cloudflare
Cloudflare’s Free plan is beneficial if your website has heavy traffic or is prone to attacks. Cloudflare operates at the DNS level, giving it more control over your site’s security. Even with the free plan, Cloudflare can protect your site from attacks, spammers, and improve performance with its security measures.
Key Features
- Free CDN: One of the best features of Cloudflare is its free CDN. A CDN enhances both security and performance by routing traffic through optimized servers. Spammers and attackers must pass through these CDN servers before reaching your website, providing an extra layer of protection.
- Free SSL: Cloudflare offers free SSL certificates. For the best security, use the “Full (strict)” option, which ensures your site is fully encrypted.
- Firewall Rules: You can set up firewall rules to block bad bots, restrict access from certain regions, and protect against XML-RPC attacks.
- Bot Fight Mode: This feature is excellent for stopping harmful bots. It’s more refined than plugin-based solutions and doesn’t slow down your website.
- Early Hint: While not a security feature, Early Hint reduces latency, improving your site’s loading speed.
- Browser Integrity Check: This feature scans HTTP headers from your visitors’ browsers to detect and block harmful bots and spam.
- Privacy Pass Support: This browser extension improves user experience by reducing the number of CAPTCHAs your visitors need to solve.
- Hotlink Protection: This feature helps protect your images and media from being linked off-site, reducing your bandwidth usage.
- Server-side Excludes: Use this feature to hide specific content from unreliable viewers, adding another layer of security.
- Automatic DDoS Protection: Cloudflare automatically detects and mitigates DDoS attacks in real-time, protecting your site at both the web and application levels.
Admintosh
Admintosh is one of the best free WordPress security plugins.It provides a complete set of tools to improve admin customization and security. With Admintosh, you can easily customize the admin dashboard, control access, and add multiple layers of protection to your website. This plugin combines essential security features in one package, allowing you to replace several plugins with just one.
Key Features
Customize WP Login Page: Admintosh allows you to fully customize your WordPress login page with ease. You can change the background color, add a background image, adjust text and link colors, upload your logo, and style the form. All of this can be done without any coding skills, letting you create a unique and professional login page in minutes.
Customize Dashboard: Transform your WordPress dashboard to match your brand. Admintosh provides options to customize the background color, menu colors, text and link colors, and even upload your logo. It makes your dashboard truly yours.
Captcha: Enhance security by adding a captcha to your login, registration, lost password, and comment forms. Admintosh features three types of CAPTCHA: Google reCAPTCHA (Version 2), Random Number CAPTCHA, and Math CAPTCHA.. These ensure that only real humans with the correct password can access your website.
Limit Login Attempts: Protect your website from brute force attacks by limiting login attempts. Once a set number of failed attempts is reached, Admintosh automatically blocks further attempts from that specific IP address or username, significantly enhancing your site’s security.
Hide Login: Secure your login page by changing its URL to something unique. Admintosh lets you easily and safely change the login URL without altering core files or adding rewrite rules. This feature makes your wp-admin directory and wp-login.php page inaccessible, adding an extra layer of protection to your website.
Login History: Keep track of user activity with detailed login information. Admintosh provides data on the last login date and time, IP address, country, city, timezone, latitude, longitude, browser details, and more. This feature helps you monitor and manage your website’s security effectively.
Antispam Bee
Antispam Bee is a powerful plugin that filters spam comments using Honeypot technology. It specializes in blocking spam comments and trackbacks without relying on reCAPTCHA or third-party systems.
Honeypot works by analyzing behavior to detect bots without requiring a CAPTCHA. It challenges bots, and if identified, they are blocked from leaving comments.
Antispam Bee is one of the most popular free WordPress plugins for stopping spam comments without slowing down your website. I use it on all my sites because it’s entirely free, has no ads, and doesn’t push for premium upgrades.
Key Features
- Trust Accepted Commenters: Automatically approves comments from trusted users.
- Trust with Gravatar: Primarily used by humans, but spammers might use it too.
- Comments in Specific Languages: Restrict comments to specific languages, like English, to match your website’s content.
- Block Certain Countries: Block comments from countries known for high spam activity.
- Verify IP Addresses: Check and confirm the IPs of commenters.
- Delete Existing Spam: Automatically remove spam on scheduled dates.
- Statistics Dashboard: View spam data, daily reports, and blocked spam, though this feature is optional.
Shield Security
Most security plugins, including Shield Security, require access to your database to store records and blocklist data. This can overload your database, slowing down your site.
If you have ample server resources, like a VPS or dedicated server, you might handle these features better. For shared hosting, the plugin may make it hard to access your dashboard. According to Query Monitor, Shield Security generates a high number of database queries, more than other WordPress security plugins, which affects performance. Shield Security is one of the Best WordPress Security plugins.
[Note: Using multiple security plugins or combining a security plugin with another that offers similar features can lead to redundant functions and excessive resource usage.]
Key Features
- Scanner: Scan and fix WordPress core, plugin, and theme files with the free version.
- AntiBot Detection: Protect your site using bot-detection technology. You can specify security areas like Login, Register, and Checkout, and set a cooldown period for login attempts.
- SPAM Protection: Protect Your Site from Spam in Comments and Forms.
- Firewall: The free version includes a firewall with customizable whitelists for pages, parameters, and users.
- Security Headers: Add security headers like Mime-Sniff and XSS Protection, which are essentially htaccess lines with extra features.
- Traffic Logs: Monitor traffic and unwanted activities through detailed logs.
- Alert: Receive notifications if something goes wrong.
Really Simple SSL
Really Simple SSL is often considered a basic plugin, but it can be useful for configuring your website to run over HTTPS. For small sites, it may not be necessary.
However, if you have a large site with many pages and content, this plugin can be helpful in ensuring everything is properly redirected to HTTPS. It offers some useful features, but the paid version is generally not needed.
Key Features
- Mixed Content Fixer: Resolves “mixed content” issues by ensuring all resources like images and CSS files are loaded over HTTPS, preventing security warnings in browsers.
- Security Headers: Helps set up security headers such as HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) and secure cookies to enhance your site’s security.
- Backend Mixed Content Fixer: Addresses mixed content issues on the WordPress backend, useful if you encounter such problems.
BulletProof Security
BulletProof Security is one of the best free WordPress security plugins. It safeguards your site with login protection, database backups, and malware scanning. The plugin also offers a one-click setup for quick and easy use. BulletProof Security is trusted for defending against SQL injection, XSS, and other common attacks.
Key Features
- Login Protection: Safeguards your login page from unauthorized access.
- Database Backups: Automatically backs up your database to prevent data loss.
- Malware Scanning: Detects and removes harmful malware from your site.
- One-Click Setup: Simple setup wizard for fast and easy configuration.
- SQL Injection Protection: Shields your site from SQL injection attacks.
- XSS Protection: Defends against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.
- Robust Security: Strong protection against various common attack methods.
iThemes Security
iThemes Security is one of the best free wordpress security plugins with many useful tools. It guards against password attacks, monitors file changes and ensures strong passwords. It’s easy to use, allows quick setup, and provides a simple overview of your site’s security status.
Key Features
- Password Protection: It protects your site from weak passwords and password attacks.
- File Change Monitoring: It alerts you to any modifications made to your files.
- Easy Setup: Quick and straightforward security setup.
- Security Dashboard: Provides a clear overview of your site’s safety.
- Two-Factor Authentication: It provides an additional layer of security for your login.
- Brute Force Protection: Shields your site from repeated login attempts.
- Database Backups: Regularly saves your data to prevent loss.
WP Security Audit Log
WP Security Audit Log is a plugin designed to monitor and record changes on your WordPress site. It tracks user activities and helps you spot and fix security issues quickly. The plugin’s detailed logs are crucial for understanding and managing security events effectively.
Key Features
WP Security Audit Log offers essential features for enhancing your WordPress site’s security:
- Activity Tracking: Monitors every change and action on your site.
- User Insights: Keeps a detailed log of user activities and logins.
- Real-Time Alerts: Notifies you immediately of suspicious actions.
- Detailed Reports: Provides comprehensive logs for security analysis.
- Customizable Settings: It lets you customize your monitoring preferences.
- Audit Trails: Maintains a clear record of site changes and user interactions.
SecuPress
SecuPress is the best WP security plugin that combines simplicity with powerful protection. It includes essential features like firewall defense, malware scanning, and vulnerability detection. SecuPress also delivers real-time security alerts, keeping website owners updated on potential threats.
Key Features
SecuPress offers key features for robust WordPress security:
- Firewall Protection: Shields your site from malicious traffic and attacks.
- Malware Scanning: Detects and removes harmful software.
- Vulnerability Detection: Identifies and alerts you to security weaknesses.
- Real-Time Alerts: Keeps you informed about potential threats as they arise.
- Simple Setup: Easy to install and configure for quick protection.
- User-Friendly Interface: IIt has a user-friendly design for easy navigation and management.
Cerber Security, Antispam & Malware Scan
Cerber Security is a powerful plugin for your website. It offers both security and anti-spam features. It protects against brute force attacks and comes with a traffic analysis tool. The plugin also has a malware scanner to keep your site safe. Anti-spam tools to keep your comments section clean.
Cerber Security: Key Features
- Brute Force Protection: Safeguards your site from unauthorized login attempts.
- Traffic Analysis: Monitors and analyzes website traffic for unusual activity.
- Malware Scanner: Detects and removes harmful software.
- Anti-Spam Tools: Keeps comments and forms free from unwanted spam.
Conclusion
To sum up, a WordPress security plugin acts as a security guard for your website. It keeps hackers, malware, and online threats away, ensuring your site stays safe. With the right plugin, you can focus on creating content and growing your online presence without worrying about security. Don’t wait—get a reliable WordPress security plugin today to protect your work and ensure a safe experience for you and your visitors.