obsyde

Obsyde Aegis protects your WordPress site with enterprise-grade security monitoring. The plugin intercepts every request, checks it against known attack signatures, and blocks threats in real time. Local protection runs unconditionally — no account required. When connected to the optional Obsyde dashboard service, detected events are additionally reported for centralised monitoring, geo maps, and AI-powered analysis.
Key Features:
<ul>
<li>Real-time local threat detection — SQL injection, XSS, path traversal, remote code execution, and 50+ attack patterns. Works without any account.</li>
<li>WordPress-specific protection — wp-login.php brute force detection, xmlrpc.php abuse blocking, REST API user enumeration prevention. Works without any account.</li>
<li>Automated IP blocking — Local pattern-match blocks and (optionally) a curated blocklist synced from the Obsyde platform</li>
<li>Community threat intelligence — 44,000+ known malicious IPs from 8 free intelligence sources (via the optional Obsyde sync), updated every 6 hours</li>
<li>Centralised dashboard (optional) — When an Obsyde API key is configured, view all security data on obsyde.com with real-time alerts, geo maps, and AI analysis</li>
<li>Zero performance impact — Pattern matching runs in under 5ms; no external API calls during page load (reporting is batched via WP-Cron)</li>
<li>Cloudflare compatible — Proper IP detection behind Cloudflare, nginx, and other reverse proxies</li>
</ul>
How It Works:
<ol>
<li>Install and activate the plugin — local firewall protection starts immediately</li>
<li>The plugin intercepts every HTTP request before WordPress processes it</li>
<li>Requests are checked against local attack signatures and (if an API key is configured) the synced Obsyde blocklist</li>
<li>Threats are blocked with a 403 response</li>
<li>If an Obsyde API key is configured, events are batched and sent to your dashboard every 60 seconds; the Obsyde blocklist syncs every 5 minutes. Without a key, local protection still runs — events are just not reported externally.</li>
</ol>
Protection Levels:
<ul>
<li>Low — Block known attacks only</li>
<li>Medium — Block attacks and suspicious patterns (recommended)</li>
<li>High — Aggressive blocking including empty User-Agent rejection</li>
<li>Paranoid — Maximum protection (may cause false positives)</li>
</ul>
<h3>External services</h3>
This plugin provides local firewall protection that runs entirely in your WordPress installation and does not require any external service.
When you choose to connect the plugin to the optional Obsyde dashboard service by entering an API key, the plugin communicates with the Obsyde API at https://obsyde.com/api/v1/plugin/ for centralised threat monitoring. This service is provided by Obsyde Ltd.
What data is sent, when, and why:
<ul>
<li>Threat events — When the local firewall blocks a request, an event containing the attacker’s IP address, a UTC timestamp, the attack type (e.g. “sqli_probe”), severity, HTTP method, request path (truncated to 2048 characters), and User-Agent string (truncated to 512 characters) is queued. Once per minute (via WP-Cron) any queued events are POSTed in a single batch to <code>/plugin/events</code>. This lets the Obsyde dashboard display, analyse, and correlate threats across all of your sites.</li>
<li>Blocklist sync — Once every 5 minutes (via WP-Cron) the plugin sends a GET request to <code>/plugin/blocklist</code> to retrieve the current curated list of malicious IPs. No site data is sent in this request; only the site API key identifies the request.</li>
<li>Heartbeat — Once every 5 minutes (via WP-Cron) the plugin sends a POST request to <code>/plugin/heartbeat</code> containing your WordPress version, PHP version, and plugin version so the Obsyde dashboard can show whether the site is reachable and up to date.</li>
<li>Connection test — When you click the “Test Connection” button in the settings, a single GET request is sent to <code>/plugin/config</code> to verify your API key.</li>
</ul>
No data is sent to any external service until you configure an API key. If you remove the API key or deactivate the plugin, no further external communication occurs.
This service’s terms and privacy policy:
<ul>
<li>Terms of service: https://obsyde.com/terms</li>
<li>Privacy policy: https://obsyde.com/privacy</li>
</ul>

Obsyde Aegis

Real-time threat detection, automated IP blocking, and AI-powered security analysis.

Sajber Sove

Secure Owl Firewall is a fast, lightweight firewall plugin with an advanced rule engine featuring PCRE pattern matching, a transformation pipeline, and JSON-based rule configuration.
Key features:
<ul>
<li>JSON-based rules — 100+ default rules covering SQLi, XSS, RCE, LFI, SSRF, Log4Shell, and more</li>
<li>Transformation pipeline — URL decode, lowercase, normalize path, remove whitespace, HTML entity decode, trim</li>
<li>Inspection targets — REQUEST_URI, QUERY_STRING, USER_AGENT, REFERER, COOKIE, and POST</li>
<li>MU-Plugin loader — runs before regular plugins for earliest protection</li>
<li>Rate limiting — optional transient-based IP and subnet banning</li>
<li>Login protection — PIN field, speed limit and honeypot to block brute-force attacks</li>
<li>IP whitelist — CIDR/subnet support for both IPv4 and IPv6</li>
<li>IP blacklist — CIDR/subnet support for both IPv4 and IPv6</li>
<li>Per-rule toggle — disable individual rules from the admin panel without editing files</li>
<li>File-based logging — 64MB cap with auto-rotation and protected storage</li>
<li>Log retention — configurable policy for GDPR compliance</li>
<li>IP anonymization — masks user IP addresses for enhanced privacy and GDPR compliance</li>
</ul>
<h3>Filter Hooks</h3>
<ul>
<li><code>sswaf_ip_whitelist</code> — array of IPs to bypass the firewall</li>
<li><code>sswaf_ip_blacklist</code> — array of IPs to block before any rules run</li>
<li><code>sswaf_trusted_proxies</code> — array of trusted proxy IPs for X-Forwarded-For</li>
<li><code>sswaf_post_scanning</code> — enable POST data inspection (default: true)</li>
<li><code>sswaf_rules_file</code> — path to the rules JSON file</li>
<li><code>sswaf_log_file</code> — path to the log file</li>
<li><code>sswaf_log_max_size</code> — maximum log size in bytes</li>
<li><code>sswaf_header_status</code> — HTTP status header for blocked requests</li>
<li><code>sswaf_before_block</code> — action hook fired before blocking a request</li>
<li><code>sswaf_rate_limit_ip_threshold</code> — override IP hit threshold</li>
<li><code>sswaf_rate_limit_ip_duration</code> — override IP ban duration</li>
<li><code>sswaf_rate_limit_ip_window</code> — override IP counting window</li>
</ul>

Secure Owl Firewall

Secure Owl Firewall is a smart rule-based protection that blocks threats and secures your site from attacks.

Obsyde Aegis vs Secure Owl Firewall