sweetwatermedia

Steel Security & Hardening – Site Audit Tools focuses on practical security hygiene for WordPress administrators.
The free plugin provides:
<ul>
<li>on-demand security scans</li>
<li>risk summaries grouped by severity and category</li>
<li>checks for common WordPress hardening gaps</li>
<li>checks for exposed root-level artifacts such as <code>.env</code>, SQL dumps, <code>phpinfo</code> files, and backup archives</li>
<li>a quarantine vault for operator-reviewed file isolation</li>
<li>uploads PHP execution blocking on supported server environments</li>
<li>manual guidance when automatic server hardening is not safely supported</li>
</ul>
This plugin is positioned as an auditing and hardening tool. It helps surface risk and apply selected preventive controls, but it does not promise malware removal, incident response, or complete server protection.
<h4>Included checks</h4>
The scan currently looks for items such as:
<ul>
<li>PHP error display exposure</li>
<li><code>WP_DEBUG</code> and <code>debug.log</code> exposure</li>
<li>XML-RPC availability</li>
<li>author and REST user enumeration exposure</li>
<li>theme/plugin file editor availability</li>
<li>WordPress generator meta output</li>
<li>comments enabled by default</li>
<li>uploads PHP execution hardening status</li>
<li>root-level sensitive files and archives</li>
</ul>
<h4>Server-aware behavior</h4>
This plugin only auto-applies server config changes where it can do so in a scoped and reversible way.
<ul>
<li>Apache and LiteSpeed: uploads PHP blocking is managed through a Steel Security-marked <code>.htaccess</code> block</li>
<li>IIS: uploads PHP blocking is managed through a Steel Security-marked <code>web.config</code> section</li>
<li>Nginx and unsupported environments: Steel Security provides manual guidance instead of claiming automatic protection</li>
</ul>
<h4>Pro companion</h4>
This plugin can work with a separate Pro companion plugin that adds features such as scheduled scans, scan history, reports, and managed server-level controls such as directory listing protection and baseline security headers. The free plugin remains usable on its own.

Steel Security & Hardening – Site Audit Tools

High-signal WordPress security auditing and hardening with practical site audit tools for administrators.

Marc Armengou

Security Hardener applies WordPress security best practices based on the <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/security/hardening/" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress Advanced Administration / Security / Hardening</a> documentation and widely accepted hardening measures. It uses WordPress core functions and follows best practices without modifying core files.
<h4>Key Features</h4>
File Security: 
* Disable file editor in WordPress admin 
* Optionally disable all file modifications
XML-RPC Protection: 
* Disable XML-RPC completely 
* Remove pingback methods when XML-RPC is enabled
Pingback Protection: 
* Disable self-pingbacks 
* Remove X-Pingback header 
* Block incoming pingbacks
User Enumeration Protection: 
* Block <code>/?author=N</code> queries (returns 404) 
* Secure REST API user endpoints (require authentication) 
* Remove users from XML sitemaps 
* Prevent canonical redirects that expose usernames 
* Optionally block author feed pages (<code>/author/username/feed/</code>) 
* Optionally anonymize the author name in oEmbed responses
Login Security: 
* Generic error messages (no username/password hints) 
* Login honeypot 
* Block unsafe usernames 
* Application Passwords disabled by default 
* IP-based rate limiting with configurable thresholds 
* Security event logging
Security Headers: 
* <code>X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN</code> (clickjacking protection) 
* <code>X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff</code> (MIME sniffing protection) 
* <code>Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin</code> 
* <code>Permissions-Policy</code> (restricts geolocation, microphone, camera) 
* Optional HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) for HTTPS sites — max-age set to 1 year
Additional Hardening: 
* Hide WordPress version (meta generator tag and asset query strings) 
* Remove obsolete wp_head items (RSD, WLW manifest, shortlink, emoji scripts) 
* System Status — monitors file permissions, WP_DEBUG, user registration, PHP version, administrator accounts, and database version
<blockquote>
⚠️ Important: Always test security settings in a staging environment first. Some features may affect third-party integrations or plugins.
</blockquote>
Privacy: This plugin does not send data to external services and does not create custom database tables. It stores plugin settings and a security event log in the WordPress options table, and uses transients for temporary login attempt tracking. All data is preserved on uninstall by default and only deleted if the “Delete all data on uninstall” option is explicitly enabled.

Security Hardener

Basic hardening: secure headers, login honeypot, user enumeration blocking, generic login errors, rate limiting, and more.

Steel Security & Hardening – Site Audit Tools vs Security Hardener