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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
