Blobfolio

Apocalypse Meow’s main focus is addressing WordPress security issues related to user accounts and logins. This includes things like:
<ul>
<li>Brute-force login-in protection;</li>
<li>Customizable password strength requirements;</li>
<li>XML-RPC access controls;</li>
<li>Account access alerts;</li>
<li>Searchable access logs (including failed login attempts and temporary bans);</li>
<li>User enumeration prevention;</li>
<li>Registration SPAM protection;</li>
<li>Miscellaneous Core and template options to make targeted hacks more difficult;</li>
<li>Anonymize/scrub leaky remote request headers;</li>
</ul>
Security is an admittedly technical subject, but Apocalypse Meow strives to help educate “normal” users about the nature of common web attacks, mitigation techniques, etc. Every option contains detailed explanations and links to external resources with additional information.
Knowledge is power!
<h3>Requirements</h3>
Due to the advanced nature of some of the plugin features, there are a few additional server requirements beyond what WordPress itself requires:
<ul>
<li>WordPress 4.4+.</li>
<li>PHP 7.3 or later.</li>
<li>PHP extensions: (bcmath or gmp), date, filter, json, pcre.</li>
<li><code>CREATE</code> and <code>DROP</code> MySQL grants.</li>
<li>Single-site Installs (i.e. Multi-Site is not supported).</li>
</ul>
Please note: it is not safe to run WordPress atop a version of PHP that has reached its <a href="http://php.net/supported-versions.php" rel="nofollow ugc">End of Life</a>. Future releases of this plugin might, out of necessity, drop support for old, unmaintained versions of PHP. To ensure you continue to receive plugin updates, bug fixes, and new features, just make sure PHP is kept up-to-date. 🙂
<h3>Log Monitoring</h3>
Some robots are so dumb they’ll continue trying to submit credentials even after the login form is replaced, wasting system resources and clogging up the log-in history table. One way to mitigate this is to use a server-side log-monitoring program like <a href="http://www.fail2ban.org/" rel="nofollow ugc">Fail2Ban</a> or <a href="https://ossec.github.io/" rel="nofollow ugc">OSSEC</a> to ban users via the firewall.
Apocalypse Meow produces a 403 error when a banned user requests the login form. Your log-monitoring rule should therefore look for repeated 403 responses to <code>wp-login.php</code>. Additionally, some robots are unable to follow redirects; if your login form requires SSL, you should also ban repeated 301/302 responses to catch those fools.
If you have enabled user enumeration protection with the <code>die()</code> option, requests for <code>?author=X</code> will produce a 400 response code which can be similarly tracked.
<h3>Privacy Policy</h3>
When active, this plugin retains security logs of every sign-in attempt made to the CMS backend. This information — including the end user’s public IP address, username, and the status of his or her attempt — is used to help prevent unauthorized system access and maintain Quality of Service for all site visitors.
This information resides fully on the hosting web site and is not shared with any third parties.
Data retention is entirely up to the site operator, but by default old records are automatically removed after 90 days.
Please note: Apocalypse Meow DOES NOT integrate with any WordPress GDPR “Personal Data” features. (Selective erasure of audit logs would undermine the security mechanisms provided by this plugin. Haha.)

Apocalypse Meow

Works nicely to protect from brute force logins, and the developer is fantastic!

great protection

A simple, light-weight collection of tools to harden WordPress security and help mitigate common types of attacks.

iThemes

Lew Ayotte

SolidWP

Timothy Jacobs

Jared Hill

Lisa Canini

<h4>Reduce your WordPress website’s risk to nearly zero with Solid Security</h4>
<a href="https://go.solidwp.com/wporg-security-ithemes" rel="nofollow ugc">Formerly iThemes Security. Looking for iThemes? Learn more here.</a>
On average, 30,000 websites are hacked every day.* Cyberattacks in the US increased by 57% in 2022.** Bad actors who want to hack your site, steal your data, and cripple your business are a 24/7/365 threat.
You need a proactive, strategic approach to WordPress website security that protects your site from brute force attacks, malware infections, and other cyber threats.
<a href="https://go.solidwp.com/solid-security-pro" rel="nofollow ugc">Solid Security</a> shields your site from cyberattacks and prevents security vulnerabilities. It automatically locks out bad users identified by our Brute Force Protection Network that is nearly 1 million sites strong and leverages your own blacklist. It secures and protects your most commonly attacked part of your WordPress website – user login authentication.
With Patchstack integration (Pro) protects your site before you even have a chance to address vulnerabilities and before a plugin or theme vendor or developer can even issue a patch.
That’s 24/7/365 always-on truly Solid Security.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Welcome to Solid Security, Part of the SolidWP Suite" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/863249227?dnt=1&app_id=122963" width="750" height="422" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write"></iframe>
<h4>🌐 Secure your Website in Minutes</h4>
The Solid Security setup and onboarding experience allows anyone to secure their WordPress website in under 10 minutes, regardless of technical acumen. Knowing that you have enabled all the right security settings for your website will leave you feeling like your site has never been more secure.
<h4>📚 Security Site Templates to Fit Your Type of Site</h4>
Enabling the correct security settings based on the type of website you are building or maintaining is essential for proper security. An eCommerce site requires a different level of security than a basic blog. Solid Security Site Templates make it quick and easy to apply the right security settings for your website.
Choose from six different site templates to apply the type of security your site needs:
<ol>
<li>Ecommerce – websites that sell products or services</li>
<li>Network – websites that connect people or communities</li>
<li>Non-Profit – websites that promote your cause and collect donations</li>
<li>Blog – websites that share your thoughts or start a conversation</li>
<li>Portfolio – websites that showcase your craft</li>
<li>Brochure – simple websites that promote your business</li>
</ol>
<h4>⌚ Real-Time Website Security Dashboard</h4>
Every day, lots of activity is happening on your website that you can’t see. Many of these activities can be related to your site’s security, so monitoring these events is vital to keeping your site secure.
The <a href="https://go.solidwp.com/solid-security-pro" rel="nofollow ugc">Solid Security Pro</a> plugin provides a real-time WordPress security dashboard that monitors security-related events on your site around the clock. The Solid Security Dashboard is a dynamic dashboard with all your WordPress website’s security activity stats in one place, including brute force attacks, banned users, active lockouts, site scan results, and user security stats (Pro).
<h4>🗝️ WordPress Login Security</h4>
Setting up and maintaining proper WordPress configurations and managing user account access are essential aspects of hardening your site against threats and vulnerabilities. Basic and Pro include features that address both of these factors.
<ul>
<li>
Two Factor Authentication (2FA) – Make your WordPress login nearly impenetrable to attack by requiring users to enter a security code along with a password to login. The Solid Security plugin allows you to add two-factor authentication to your WordPress login with several authentication methods, including mobile apps like Authy and Google Authenticator, email, and backup codes.
</li>
<li>
Password Requirements – Create and enforce a password policy for your users in less than a minute.
</li>
<li>
reCAPTCHA (Pro) – Stop bad bots from engaging in abusive activities on your website, such as attempting to break into your website using compromised passwords, posting spam, or even scraping your content.
</li>
<li>
Passwordless Logins (Pro) – WordPress security made easy. Secure your user accounts with 2fa & strong passwords while allowing real users login with a click of a mouse.
</li>
<li>
Trusted Devices (Pro) – Identify the devices you and other users use to block session hijacking attacks and limit Administrator privileges to Trusted Devices.
</li>
<li>
Automated Vulnerability Patching (Pro) – Solid Security Pro includes Patchstack which patches vulnerabilities before you have a chance to and applies fixes even before a plugin developer or vendor has issued a patch.
</li>
</ul>
Learn more about how <a href="https://go.solidwp.com/wporgpasswordless" rel="nofollow ugc">passwordless login is the future</a> and how Solid Security can help you implement it today.
<h4>👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 The Right Amount of Security for Every User Level</h4>
Different types of user levels require different levels of security. During the Solid Security setup process, you can identify your website’s key user groups. Once the different types of users are identified, you can apply the level of security that is just right for each user group.
Here are a couple of examples of how User Groups are useful for securing your site:
<ul>
<li>
For Clients – Let’s say you are configuring Solid Security on a client’s website. You will decide whether or not they are required to use two-factor authentication and if they should have access to the Solid Security settings.
</li>
<li>
For Customers – If you have an eCommerce website, you will decide whether or not you want to protect customer accounts with a password policy.
</li>
</ul>
Privilege Escalation (Pro) also adds a safe, secure way to grant temporary admin-level access to your website.
<h4>🤖 Block Bad Bots & Ban User Agents with Lockouts</h4>
<ul>
<li>
Ban Users (Basic and Pro) – Permanently block repeat offenders from accessing your site. 
Local Brute Force Protection – Automatically identify and stop the most common method of attack on WordPress sites.
</li>
<li>
Local Brute Force Protection (Basic and Pro) – Automatically identify and stop the most common method of attack on WordPress sites.
</li>
<li>
Network Brute Force Protection (Basic and Pro) – The network is the Solid Security community and is nearly one million websites strong. If someone tries to break into websites in the Solid Security community, Solid Security will block them across the network.
</li>
<li>
Magic Links (Pro) – Security shouldn’t get in your way. Magic Links allow you to log in to your WordPress site while your username is locked out by the Solid Security Local Brute Force Protection feature.
</li>
</ul>
<h4>🔍 Monitor Your Site’s Security Health</h4>
<ul>
<li>
File Change Detection (Basic and Pro) – Solid Security logs changes made to your website that can help detect malicious activity on your website.
</li>
<li>
Site Scanner (Basic and Pro) – Schedule checks to run four times per day (Basic) or hourly (Pro) for known vulnerabilities of WordPress core file, plugins and themes. Using the Google Safe Browsing API, the Site Scan also checks your Google’s blocklist status and will alert you if Google has found any malware on your website.
</li>
<li>
Patchstack integration (Pro) – Automated virtual patching of some vulnerabilities before you even have a chance to address them yourself, and before a plugin or theme vendor or developer can even issue a patch.
</li>
<li>
Site Scanner (Pro) – Unlock Version Management to automatically apply a patch to vulnerable software detected by the Site Scan when one is available.
</li>
<li>
User Logging (Pro) – Keep a record of user activity in your WordPress security logs, including login/logout, user registration, adding/removing plugins, switching themes, changes to posts and pages, and more.
</li>
<li>
Version Management (Pro) – The Version Management feature in Solid Security Pro allows you to auto-update WordPress, plugins, and themes. Beyond that, Version Management also has options to harden your website when you are running outdated software and scan for old websites.
</li>
</ul>
<h4>🧠 Smarter, More Actionable Vulnerability Prioritization</h4>
Not all vulnerabilities pose the same level of risk, and the traditional Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score doesn’t always reflect the realities of running a WordPress site.
Solid Security now uses the Patchstack Priority score, which goes beyond CVSS to provide a real-world risk assessment tailored to WordPress. It factors in how likely a vulnerability is to be exploited and its actual impact on your site.
With Patchstack Priority, you get a clearer picture of what really matters, helping you focus on the vulnerabilities that pose the greatest risk, and worry less about noise from low-impact issues.
<h4>🛠️ Website Security Utilities</h4>
<ul>
<li>
Enforce SSL – Force all connections to the website to be made over SSL/TLS.
</li>
<li>
Database Backups – Create backups of your WordPress database. (Not a complete backup.)
</li>
<li>
Geolocation (Pro) – Improve Trusted Devices by connecting to an external location or mapping API.
</li>
</ul>
<h4>🚀 Advanced Security Tools</h4>
<ul>
<li>Identify Server IPs – Prevent issues caused by inadvertently locking out your server IPs.</li>
<li>Change User ID 1 – Change the user ID for the first WordPress user, potentially preventing attacks that assume the user with ID1 exists and is an administrator.</li>
<li>Change Database Prefix – Change the database prefix that WordPress uses, potentially preventing attacks that assume the database prefix is “wp_”.</li>
<li>Check File Permission – See the file and directory permissions of key areas of your site.</li>
<li>Server Config Rules – View or flush the server security rules generated by Solid Security.</li>
<li>wp-config.php Rules – View or flush the wp-config.php security rules generated by Solid Security.</li>
<li>Change WordPress Salts – Secure your site after a successful attack by changing the WordPress salts used to secure cookies and security tokens.</li>
<li>Hide Login URL – change the login URL of your site, making it harder for bots to find your login page and attack it.</li>
</ul>
<h4>🛟 Need Help?</h4>
Free support may be available with the community’s help in the WordPress.org support forums. Our Solid Security support team provides top-notch technical support to all our Solid Security Basic users there.
<a href="https://go.solidwp.com/security-help-center" rel="nofollow ugc">Our Help Center will help you become an iThemes Security expert.</a>
Get additional peace of mind with professional support from our expert team and pro features to take your site’s security to the next level with Solid Security Pro.
<h4>Recover From a Hacked Site</h4>
Solid Security makes regular backups of your WordPress database, allowing you to get back online quickly in the event of a hack or security breach. Use Solid Security to create and email database backups on a customizable schedule.
For complete site backups and the ability to restore or move WordPress to a new host or domain, check out <a href="https://go.solidwp.com/security-basic-solid-backups" rel="nofollow ugc">Solid Backups</a>.
<h4>Solid Central Integration</h4>
Manage more than one WordPress site? Release lockouts and keep your themes, plugins, and WordPress core up to date from one dashboard with <a href="https://go.solidwp.com/security-basic-solid-central" rel="nofollow ugc">Solid Central</a>.
*Zippia. “30 Crucial Cybersecurity Statistics [2023]: Data, Trends And More” Zippia.com. Jun. 15, 2023, https://www.zippia.com/advice/cybersecurity-statistics/
**https://blog.checkpoint.com/2023/01/05/38-increase-in-2022-global-cyberattacks/
<h3>License</h3>
Released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Solid Security – Password, Two Factor Authentication, and Brute Force Protection

The Best WordPress Security Plugin to Secure & Protect WordPress


When paired with Cloudflare for added security, this plugin is nice and lightweight. It's secure enough when you already have other security measures on your website and good hosting.



I do wish they had an option to disable reporting vulnerable software every time a plugin was one miner version behind on updates, especially since I have an auto update plugin on my website.



Other than that, if you have good and secure hosting, and are using a cloudflare dns, this is a good and lightweight plugin. (note: I'm also using nginx instead of apache).


Decent Plugin When Paired With Cloudflare


My experience was when testing this plugin on behalf of some of my customer's complaints.



Right after installing it, some dynamic images stopped working due to modifications this plugin makes to .htaccess file.



Such modifications are registered as being part of iThemes Security which makes it even harder to identify.



Because most of my customers don't even use git or any version control system, it gets even harder to identify such changes.



Also, by deactivating or even removing the plugin (using wp-cli or via panel) will not undo those intrusive changes.



Same goes to changes made in wp-config.php disallowinging file editing, regardless you configure the plugin to not alter your wp-config.php file.


Inadivertly changes .htaccess configuration


This plugin makes website protection simple with real-time monitoring and automatic blocking that works quietly in the background. I feel more confident knowing threats are stopped before they cause damage. The cost of the premium plan could be a hurdle for smaller projects but the features are impressive.


Reliable Security You Can Count On

Harden your site security with Login Security, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), Vulnerability Scanner, Firewall, and more. Formerly iThemes Security.

Apocalypse Meow vs Solid Security – Password, Two Factor Authentication, and Brute Force Protection