Gauntlet Security for WordPress

Gauntlet Security can find opportunities for improving the security of your site. It checks many aspects of the site’s configuration including file permissions, server software, PHP, database, plugins, themes, and user accounts. The plugin will give each check a pass, warning, or fail and explain in clear language how you can fix the issue.

How you ultimately choose to patch these issues is up to you but whatever method you use, this plugin should always provide an accurate report. It does not make changes to your database or to any of your files and it should be compatible with all other security plugins.

Checks and recommendations include:

Set correct file and directory permissions

Turn off directory indexing

Prevent code execution in the uploads directory

Block files in the includes directory

Prevent access to stray files which could be useful to attackers

Keep PHP up-to-date

Disable dangerous PHP functions

Disable allow_url_include and allow_url_fopen PHP flags

Turn off the display of PHP errors

Don’t advertise the PHP version you are running

Use a strong database password

Change the default database table prefix

Keep WordPress up-to-date