Best WordPress Security Plugins You Can Use For Free
Lets take a look at some of the best free WordPress Security Plugins you can use to keep your WordPress website safe from attackers.
Why Use WordPress Security Plugins?
The reason we use WordPress security plugins is because WordPress can be easily to hacked depending on what you have done to prevent it. The ability for everyone to use the website building tool means there have been many modifications to make usage easier. This of course leads to more ways for hackers to gain entry to your WordPress website.
This is why using one or more WordPress security plugins is essential to make sure your data is safe and so is your website. We will be looking at all the best free options you can use, so anyone can get these installed and start securing your website right away.
Where Can I Download These Plugins?
You can access all these plugins through the plugins option on your WordPress dashboard and install them straight to your website. How ever ill also leave the links below in case you want to manually download and upload the WordPress security plugins.
1. Wordfence Security – Firewall & Malware Scan
This is a must have security plugin for every website. This has great all around security and a brilliant malware scan and firewall blocking ability.
You can track all log ins, IP’s and do very easy whois look ups on anyone failing login attempts or blocked as they tried to access something they shouldn’t have.
The reason this plugin beats all the rest is due to its learning ability and great skills and finding visitors which are doing things they shouldnt be. This can be accessing parts of your website that isnt allowed unless your an admin, log in attempts, accessing php scripts or trying to upload files with out your consent. And the list goes on.
You can easily block IP’s or whole networks to make sure the same person cant keep accessing the your website. Meaning that they would then have to try via a VPN (a paid resource)
You can also setup 2 factor authentication for your login making it extremely hard for anyone to access your admin account. Even if they figure our your password. Simply link the website to an authenticator and you can worry less knowing only you can authenticate logins to your website using this awesome WordPress security plugin.
WordFence Features Include
- Login security.
- Malware Scanning.
- Notifications of changes made to website.
- Firewall that learns and improves.
- Easy whois trackback and block.
- Whole IP range blockage.
- 2 factor authentication option for website.
2. WP Cerber Security, Anti-Spam & Malware Scan
This brilliant security plugin also works great for many different reasons. Like WordFence it also provides Malware scanning and a firewall. But this plugin includes some features which you dont normally get in one plugin. Meaning that you save space on your website by only having to use this rather than multiple security plugins to do the same job.
Add log in security and limit login attempts easily using this plugin. You can set maximum attempts, what the re-percussions are of going over the limit and pretty much everything else you need to do with login. You can even change the page you use to log into your site so people cant just use wp-admin to login.
You also have a number of other choices which I mentioned about which means you can do it all with one plugin rather than having to download multiples ones to do the job.
WP Cerber Features Include
- Firewall.
- Malware scanning.
- Login Limitation.
- 2 factor authentication.
- Change URL slug login.
- Disable XML-RPC.
- Disable PHP in uploads.
- Prevent username discovery.
- Notifications for changes.
3. iThemes Security
This has made it third on the list due to its ease of use for beginners. This doesnt have quite everything wp cerber has but is a very effective security measure with easy setup. It works well in conjunction with the WordFence plugin.
When you start off you go one by one down the list (picture above) and you set up all the security on your website. Its easy and gives you options bit by bit making it much more manageable if your not sure what you need to add security wise.
This also includes login attempts and brute force attacks making it very useful if someone is trying to DDoss your website or attempt to brute force login.
This security plugin also includes notification for file changes on your website along with scanning to make sure no malicious files have been uploaded with out your knowledge. So if you get an alert of something being uploaded whilst your not online. You can quickly log on and stop it.
iThemes Plugin Features
- Site scan.
- Login security.
- Brute force attack protection.
- File change notifications.
- User group permissions.
- Automatic database backups.
Conclusion
Using these plugins alone or together will greatly increase security on your website. I personally recommend using WordFence with WP-Cerber to get a maximum effect. Also I highly recommend you spend some time and configure the settings to suit you exactly.
Most WordPress security plugins are very customisable so make sure you take a good look through and use the plugins full potential. Alternatively you can always get hold of us here at YLS Studio and one of our developers can get all the security you will need added.
