WordPress administrators expect an easy time when they login to their websites to create content and manage their website's blackened. But that process doesn't always go as planned.

You log into your website only to find errors. Your site redirects to malware, and your website credentials don't work.

Congratulations — your website has been hacked.

It's hard to deal with a hack after it happens, so you must do everything possible to avoid the problem in the first place. Installing a WordPress firewall plugin will give you the tools to stop hacks from crashing your website.

A WordPress firewall acts as a shield for your website. It pulls from a threat database to block bad actors from accessing sensitive areas on your website. It also monitors your files to check for file modifications that allow hackers access to your WordPress installation.

But there are many WordPress firewalls on this market, so finding the best one can be challenging. In this post, we cover five of the top products available. Each of these products has features that will protect your website against hackers and ensure your website stays online for your visitors.

1. Sucuri

Sucuri is largely considered the top WordPress firewall on the market. It's an all-in-one package that provides everything a web admin needs to keep things safe.

Other packages will often leave web admins frustrated with what they can do. One service may offer DNS-level protection and not protect against malware. Other products will use a ton of resources and slow websites to a crawl.

For $200 per website every year, Sucuri offers everything you need. Here are the features you'll see with Sucuri.

DNS Protection

Sucuri is a DNS firewall at heart. This means that all web traffic that attempts to access your website needs to go through Sucuri first.

This can happen because you switch the nameservers for your website to a Sucuri domain. All web traffic gets scanned on Sucuri's servers before going to your website. This filter allows your firewall to block bad actors before they get a chance to hammer your website.

Malware Scanning

As good as DNS protection is at stopping website threats, it isn't foolproof. New threats are constantly created and will make their way to websites before companies can update their threat databases. These threats often modify your core WordPress files and introduce new files to your website server.

This is why every website needs a malware scanner. Your scanner regularly scans your core website files to check for unnecessary changes. The scanner will revert the file to its original version if a change is detected.

A malware scanner will also scan the directory structure of your website to look for files that shouldn't be there. Those files get quarantined in a vault for you to examine and remove.

Injection Prevention

Malware isn't the only way for hackers to access WordPress installations. WordPress is a dynamic website. This means it calls a database before rendering web pages to determine what information to show.

An end user usually doesn't see the details about how this happens. On the other hand, a hacker can expose database calls and modify the information going to a database.

SQL injection is how they do this. Intruders can send malicious commands to your database to delete information, change records, and gain administrative access. Your Sucuri installation will detect when this happens and block it.

Backups

Protecting your website against hackers isn't the only part of website security. It also means securing your files from data loss and website corruption. Even with great software and hardware, accidents can still happen.

Sucuri offers a backup service in addition to website protection. Your Sucuri plugin will regularly back up your website files and database to a secure server. You can easily restore your website to a working version with a few clicks if your website experiences issues.

Performance Optimization

Using Sucuri's DNS offers much more than protection against attacks. You're also using them as a content delivery network (CDN) when you use their nameservers. That means your visitors will receive their content from a website server close to them.

Your website content will be cached on a CDN and stored as static HTML. Keeping a cache means your website won't need to read from a database and render that content when a visitor arrives. That can significantly increase the speed of your website.

Customer Support

One of the biggest issues a web admin faces when dealing with security issues is getting help. Yes, you can call your hosting company to try and find a security expert. But in many cases, you'll get vague advice that doesn't help you resolve your security problem.

A Sucuri subscription gives you access to security specialists. You'll get help removing malicious files, restoring your website, and clearing out every security problem your WordPress website has.

This support is critical to restoring your website for your visitors.

2. Wordfence

Wordfence is considered one of the best free WordPress firewalls on the market. One of the selling points of this product is the ease of setup. You install the plugin from the plugin directory, run the initial setup, and you have a Wordfence installation ready to go.

Wordfence works as an application firewall. It resides on your web server and monitors the files on your installation for malicious changes.

Additionally, Wordfence will protect your WordPress website from more complicated attacks like SQL injection. It also offers limited DDoS protection.

However, DDoS protection is limited. Since Wordfence is an application-level firewall, it can't protect your website on the DNS level. It stops bad traffic after it has already reached your website, unlike DNS protection which prevents traffic from reaching your website in the first place.

The free Wordfence installation offers many features, but the paid version provides more for $99 per year. You get real-time protection against bad IP addresses and an updated threat database the moment the Wordfence team detects new threats.

3. MalCare Security

MalCare security is a powerful WordPress firewall known for excellent malware protection. It comes with a cloud-based Malware scanner that offers better security performance than other scanners.

Many other firewall products reside on the website owner's server. As a result, they use server resources to run and slow down the website.

Since MalCare's malware scanner is in the cloud, you won't face the same slowdown. On top of the speedy malware protection, you also get a web application firewall and an advanced login page.

MalCare also offers a paid service starting at $69 annually for one website. You get uptime monitoring, real-time protection,

4. Bulletproof Security

Bulletproof security is a popular application-level firewall for WordPress websites. It has an easy-to-use setup wizard that allows any WordPress user to gain advanced website protection.

Bulletproof security can scan for malware, perform backups, and login monitoring. This default setup provides the base protection your website needs to stay safe.

One difference between bulletproof security and other WordPress firewall products is that the professional version is a one-time fee. You can pay $69.95 for the license and use it for a website as long as you keep it online.

The professional version offers several upgrades that are worth considering. You get an upload guard, database monitor, real-time monitoring, and personal support.

5. All-In-One WP Security and Firewall

All-in-One WP Security and Firewall is a great WordPress firewall for people who want a ton of features for free with a WordPress plugin. It's considered a complete firewall solution, although it doesn't contain the depth of features other firewall products contain.

Some features you can expect are brute-force login protection, website code protection, blacklist and whitelist features, and SQL injection protection.

All-in-One WP Security and firewall also has a paid version for $70 per year. It contains more advanced malware protection, flexible two-factor authentication, and the ability to block countries from accessing your website.

It's no secret that cybercrime is on the rise. Believe it or not, the FBI received 1,300 cybercrime reports per day in 2019.

Your website will be no different if you use WordPress. Since WordPress is the most popular content management system out there, it's a prime target for hackers. If you rely on third-party plugins and themes to make your site work, then you're at even more risk.

Luckily, there are several security measures you can take to protect your WordPress website. See what those measures are below.

Keep Everything Updated

No software is perfect, so the chances are good that your website installation has undiscovered bugs. While many of these problems aren't security concerns, there's always the rare occasion when one of them will be.

The problem isn't just with your core WordPress installation, either. Many security problems come from third-party themes and plugins. The more plugins and themes you add to your site, the bigger problem this becomes.

If you want to stay on top of WordPress security, keeping your software updated is your first line of defense. Software providers are typically on top of security issues when they're discovered. Regular updates will provide security patches for your website, so hackers can't take advantage of them.

Of course, you might not have time to check your website for updates all the time. That's why WordPress provides automatic updates for your files.

Just be aware that not all themes and plugins work well together at all times. If you make extensive use of them, updates can break your website. Make sure your website is backed up regularly so you can revert your website to an old version until you can track down your update problems.

Use Two-Factor Authentication

Even if you use a strong password, that won't stop hackers from accessing your administration section. You can suffer from a data breach from another provider, or a hacker can use another method to steal your password.

Two-factor authentication solves this problem. Even though an attacker has your password, they won't be able to log in unless they have your secondary authentication method.

The primary way two-factor authentication works is with secondary codes. They're sent by email, text message, or an authentication application. In more complex scenarios, you can use a hardware device to log into your site.

It's not difficult to set up this process, either. Install the two-factor authentication plugin, and you can set it up in no-time.

Change Your WordPress Login URL

Nobody can attempt to log into your WordPress website if they can't find the login URL. Many attackers use automated programs to browse to your login page and automate the login process. Changing your login location stops these programs in their tracks.

The plugin WPS Hide Login accomplishes this task. Once you install it, use the administration section to indicate where you want your new login location.

Disable File Editing

There might be the rare occasion when someone gains access to your website. They have access to all your website files when this happens. A hacker can browse your theme and plugin code and add whatever malicious code they want.

You can stop this from happening by disabling file changes from your wp-config file. Add the following code to the end of that file to stop changes from happening:

define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true);

Monitor Your Website Files

The admin section isn't the only way hackers can modify your WordPress installation. In some cases, they can use compromised plugins and themes to access your web server's file system. From there, they can add and modify any file they want.

You'll need to monitor file changes on your server if you want to know when this happens. A security plugin can handle the job for you.

Wordfence is a free WordPress firewall and malware scanner. The Wordfence plugin continuously monitors your core WordPress files to look for changes. If something in a file doesn't look right, Wordfence will remove it and replace it with the original version.

You can also take advantage of Wordfence's malware definition database to remove malware from your server. Malware spreads quickly on web servers and can quickly infect your whole installation. Having a program remove the problem for you will save you a lot of time if you try to clean up your WordPress site yourself.

Change Your Database Prefix

Software automation comes at a price. While the WordPress install is easy and quick, it uses common naming patterns to make sure everything runs smoothly. One of those patterns is with database prefixes.

Your WordPress databases contain the term "wp-" before all its database tables. A hacker can use this pattern to access all your database information.

A plugin like this can stop a hacker from accessing your data. If someone doesn't know your prefix, they can't run commands to access and change data.

Stop DDoS Attacks

Hackers aren't the only security threat you'll face with your website. If you run a popular website that is hardened against attacks, attackers might use a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against your web server. If this happens and you aren't prepared, it can cause your website to crash.

A DDoS attack occurs when an attacker sends a large amount of traffic to a website in an attempt to overload its resources. These attacks can take place for hours and cripple your ability to conduct business with your website.

A great way to mitigate DDoS attacks is to use a content delivery network (CDN). Your CDN provider uses caching to host static versions of your website pages that don't change. Instead of your visitors hitting your server with requests when seeing these pages, they'll use the CDN server to access your website.

The same is true for someone wanting to launch a DDoS attack. Since their attack doesn't reach your server, your website won't go down. CDN providers also have security measures in place to detect and stop these attacks from happening.

If you're looking for a CDN to protect your website, Cloudflare is a great choice. Their free plan offers everything you need to protect your site.

Install SSL

Nothing is encrypted on the internet by default. If someone has monitoring tools available and is watching your traffic, they can see all the information you send and receive.

That's what SSL is for. It's a security certificate that provides encryption for everything that happens on your website. If you're logging into your administration section, you don't need to worry about anyone stealing your data.

Luckily, it isn't challenging to set up SSL anymore. Most hosting providers provide free SSL certificates from the LetsEncrypt service. It only takes a few seconds to set up, so make sure you take advantage of the service.

Don't Cut Corners With Website Security

Having a secure site today doesn't mean that it will remain so in the future. If you don't take the proper precautions, you'll put your website at risk. Use the tips above to fortify your defenses so hackers can't hack your WordPress site.

Are you dealing with a virus or hacker problem on your WordPress site? Let me know the problem, and I'll help you clean up your WordPress installation.