10 of the Best WordPress Plugins for Website Security this 2021

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Your website is equivalent to the real estate or brick-and-mortar location of a business. Just like you would protect your business establishment and secure the goods and people inside as best as you can, it is the same thing as with your digital real estate–your website. 

Unfortunately, not all website owners or developers can fully protect their site, data, and consumers. Around 30,000 new websites are suffering from cyberattacks daily. Storing real-time data and robust website security is now a staple for websites that must not be ignored. 

All the more that your website needs to have robust protection to protect you, your employees, and most significantly, your users. You need secure connections so no intruder can quickly invade and take over. WordPress websites have the luxury of selecting among its plethora of plugins, especially those built to protect your website. 

A secure website is one that is proactive and always a step ahead of cyberattacks. Security experts project that this 2021,  there will be around $6 trillion in damages from cyberattacks. 

It is why you and your team need to be aware of new cyber threats to fight off in 2021 and know how to best defend your website from them using the best WordPress security plugins. 

WordPress is behind 39.6% of websites this 2021, and websites built on CMS (Content Management Systems) that use WordPress are at an impressive 64.1% this year.

Since WordPress dominates as the most popular CMS in the world, it is also a favorite target for hackers and cybercriminals who build WordPress malware-infected plugins. Since there are more users on WordPress, they have more chances for cyberattacks or data breaches. 

Once an unsuspecting WordPress user downloads a plugin, the malware is released, and either takes over the system through ransomware or starts stealing data, among other possible attack scenarios. 

Cyber attackers do not just attack your business, but all the users that come and go through your site. This has severe consequences. That is why search engines immediately penalize and take down sites that are a threat to users. 

As a result, your SEO rank suffers tremendously. You lose business, lose customers, and even suffer legal ramifications. 

Protect Your Website at All Costs

The importance of cybersecurity in your business is immense. Cybersecurity should be one of your biggest investments, whether you are a small business or a large one. It’s a fallacy that cyber attackers only target big companies. Hackers will target any site as long as they find vulnerabilities to exploit. 

You need the best protection for your servers, systems, data, devices. Usually, an unsecured website becomes an open door for attackers to infiltrate these without you even knowing it. 

Construct your website to ensure the best possible protection since your website is your asset. There are several WordPress security plugins to choose from. You need to pick from verified and trusted sources to ensure you are installing the right ones that can fully cover your website. 

The best security plugins can regularly monitor security, scan files for malware, monitor blacklists, build firewalls, commence brute force attack protection and post-hack defense, and provide security alerts in real-time upon detection of any threat. 

Here are 10 of the best WordPress Security Plugins you can consider for 2021:

10 Best WordPress Security Plugins for 2021

1. MalCare Security: Security & Firewall

The MalCare Security Plugin is a trusted security plugin even by large-scale websites. It provides robust and comprehensive website security fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 

It has a fully-automated malware detection and removal feature that acts really fast, even in less than one minute. Users are also guaranteed not to experience any slowdowns when scanning for viruses, as Malware Security Plugin runs on its Malcare servers.

This plugin’s 24/7 firewall protection is impressive as well and can block flagged IP addresses in no time. 

It also has a WordPress management plugin that makes managing multiple WordPress sites and permissions an easy task. You can also make 90-day website backups to prevent data loss and the like.

2. Jetpack: WP Security, Backup, Speed, & Growth

Jetpack for WP Security, Backup, Speed, and Growth is one powerful security plugin. 

It significantly improves your website security and performance with its advanced security features, automated backup systems, real-time security scans, anti-spam protection, frequent plugin updates, unlimited backup storage, and user-friendly analytics. 

This plugin has integrated marketing tools and features to boost site speed. It gives you assurance of peak performance, evidenced by more than 5 million downloads. 

Other standout features include blocking and clearing spam comment submissions in comments and input forms on your WordPress site. You can avoid the infiltration of spam comments that can be harmful to your site and your visitors. It also provides brute force attack protection, downtime monitoring, and a detailed activity log.

3. Sucuri Security: Auditing, Malware Scanner and Security Hardening

Sucuri Security is one of the most popular, most downloaded free security plugins. If you choose to avail of all its advanced features, you can also pay for its premium version. 

This security plugin automatically scans your website for malware, infected files, link injections, and other malicious content or activity. You also get security activity auditing, including failed login attempts, monitoring file integrity, and real-time notifications when unauthorized changes are being made to your site. 

Its extra features include tracking blacklists and effectively hardens your security by removing vulnerabilities. 

A DNS firewall that blocks malicious websites is an added feature in the Sucuri Security plugin’s paid version. This plugin also aids in boosting website speed, blocking DDoS attacks, and adding multiple versions of SSL certificates to secure your content thoroughly.

You also get regular security auditing features and post-hack security protection, providing actionable steps to restore and repair your website. And although no website is 100% immune from attacks, the Sucuri Security plugin’s website hardening features are impressively top-notch. 

4. WordFence Security: Firewall & Malware Scan

Wordfence Security is a trusted and user-friendly security plugin with real-time security notifications. You can get this plugin for free, but it also has a paid version if you want to avail yourself of all its features. 

This security plugin comes with a strong security firewall, active malware, anti-spam, anti-malware scan and prevention, and country blocking features. 

You can rest assured your data is protected, including files and core files. The plugin also provides brute force attack prevention and solutions and automatically blocks unfamiliar logins or unknown passwords. 

With the Wordfence Security plugin, you can get extra traffic monitoring features to determine the traffic source (organic or bots).

The paid has real-time updates on new attacks and a real-time IP blacklist, advanced spam filtering, scheduled scanning. Paid accounts also get ticket priority which saves you precious time, especially in attacks or any unforeseen issues.

5. iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security)

iThemes Security has limited free features, so to avail of all its benefits, and it is best to get the paid version. But its pro features are indeed worth the investment. It includes 2FA (Two Factor Authentication), scheduled malware scans, activity logs, Google reCAPTCHA, WordPress security keys, and dashboard widgets. It also has to import and export capabilities, file comparisons, password security, and expiration for an added layer of protection. 

The iThemes Security plugin will automatically ban too many invalid logins from preempting and preventing brute force attacks and regularly scans for potential vulnerabilities. You get troubleshoot instructions once it detects a threat in a matter of seconds. 

This plugin hardens your server security and forces SSL for pages like your admin page, blog, and other secondary servers’ content. This plugin masks WordPress protection flaws frequently attacked by hackers. You will get email updates of threats to your WordPress account for urgent response. It easily interacts with your WP dashboard, so you don’t need to navigate a third-party website.

6. All-in-One WP Security and Firewall

All In One plugin is a popular choice among WordPress amateurs because it’s very user-friendly and comes for free. Users can get visual reports complete with graphs, key website metrics, and recommendations for optimization and security. 

This plugins security feature is divided into Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced categories. You can apply for firewall protection in stages so your website’s performance will not be slowed down. Other features include user account active protection, unauthorized editing on your admin page, and PHP code protection. 

The All in One plugin also has .htaccess and .wp-config file backups with a restore option, and a blacklist tool, detection of malicious code, and an anti-spam feature on your comments section. You also get automatic scanning and IP filtering, along with account integrity monitoring and backup scheduling. 

7. SecuPress Free

SecuPress Free is another favorite among WordPress users because you can avail of this plugin for free. It also has an easy-to-use and navigable UI (User Interface) design that appeals to WordPress beginners. 

Despite being a free security plugin, it can secure your website from any kind of cyberthreat. Its robust security system includes protection from brute force logins, prevents blocked IPs, and a reliable firewall system. 

Your website’s security keys are also secured because SecuPress can easily detect and block crawls from bad bots. This security plugin also has a 35-point security scanning, geo-blocking, notifications, and PHP malware-scanning for other plugins and themes. 

8. BulletProof Security

BulletProof Security WordPress is not as well-known as its competitors, but it boasts that the 45,000 websites using this plugin have never experienced being hacked in the last seven years. That is impressive, living up to its name, although this data does not include server hacks and the like.

This security plugin is user-friendly and easy to install or set up. Its free version includes security logs and monitoring, malware scanning, database backups, and restores. It also has robust anti-spam and anti-hacking features. 

Using the BulletProof Security plugin’s maintenance mode keeps your site protected during front-end or back-end maintenance and updates. This security plugin appeals well to advanced WordPress developers because of its customization options for various security settings.

9. Shield Security: Powerful All-In-One Protection

Shield Security has the highest 5-star rating per download among WordPress plugins. It uses Artificial Intelligence to optimize UX (User Experience) by removing repetitive work and providing user-friendly website security features. 

This security plugin takes pride in its two key security strategies for WordPress: prevention and cure. It has a hacking-prevention system that blocks malicious bots, malicious visitors, and unauthorized access. 

The Shield Security plugin can detect and analyze different bot-signals like 404 error-generating site probes, failed login or invalid username login attempts, XML-RPC access, fake search engine web crawlers, and many more. 

It provides immediate and effective hacking cures for your WordPress Core, Plugins, and Themes in case of an attack. Shield Security is the only WordPress security plugin that provides complete and reliable monitoring of file changes for plugins and themes since it builds its own fingerprints file.

Upgrading to ShieldPRO also helps you protect your premium plugins and themes, like Yoast SEO and the like. This plugin truly is worth the try because it makes WordPress security easy but comes with AI-powered solutions that automate the most appropriate actions to protect your WordPress site. You don’t have to worry about web security or get non-stop notifications for threats. 

10. Google Authenticator

With Google Authenticator, you can easily set up two-factor authentication (2FA) for extra security. Most security plugins do not have 2FA features, so it’s best to double up your security layers with this plugin. 

It has a simple UI that is moderately user-friendly and gives you options for the 2FA type you want to use for your website. You can also do unique login pages as the plugin offers shortcodes for customization.

You can use the Google Authenticator plugin with the Google Authenticator app for mobile devices and your accounts in Gmail, Dropbox, Lastpass, Amazon, and the like. 

The 2FA restriction can be activated on a per-user basis. You may want to activate it with your administrator account, but log in as usual with less privileged accounts.

Enable the App Password if you need to maintain your blog using an Android or iPhone app or another program that uses the XMLRPC framework. Only make sure you double up with a robust security plugin, as your blog can be less secure with the App Password feature.

Conclusion: Strengthen Your Website with WordPress Security Plugins

These are only ten of the many security plugins available for WordPress in 2021. Any time you look for plugins, make sure they are tested by WordPress itself and recommended by other webmasters.

It will be a smart idea to research the plugin on your own and see WordPress users’ feedback. If you prefer free or paid extensions, track your site’s credibility daily, exercise web protection at all times, and arm yourself with cybersecurity tools against cyberthreats.