Advanced Country Blocker vs All-In-One Security (AIOS) – Security and Firewall

Advanced Country Blocker helps you secure your WordPress site by restricting access based on the visitor’s geolocation (country) or IP address. Upon activation, the plugin detects the activating admin’s country and automatically sets that as the only allowed country. All other visitors from different countries are blocked, unless they use a secret key parameter to temporarily whitelist their IP. Country detection uses the privacy-friendly ip-api.com service by default but can be switched to a fully offline MaxMind GeoLite2 (or compatible) database file once you configure a local copy. Key Features: Automatically allows the admin’s country on plugin activation. Flexible IP-to-country lookups – start with the built-in ip-api.com integration and optionally switch to an offline MaxMind GeoLite2 Country (or compatible) .mmdb database file. Allowlist or blacklist mode – choose whether the country list acts as an allowlist or blocklist without re-entering countries. Temporary access via a customizable secret URL parameter (e.g., ?MySecretKey=1). CAPTCHA Challenge – allow blocked visitors to solve a CAPTCHA to gain temporary access (supports Google reCAPTCHA v2/v3, hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile). Real-Time Activity Monitor – live dashboard showing active visitors, recent blocks, and traffic statistics. Analytics Dashboard – comprehensive charts and statistics about blocked attempts. Manual blacklisting and safelisting of IPs for added security and to accommodate uptime monitors. Optional email alerts when new visitors are blocked. Admin bypass so logged-in admins can always access the site (toggleable in the code). Detailed logging of blocked attempts in a custom database table, displayed in the WP admin. Custom response controls – personalise the block page title/message, choose the HTTP status (403, 410, 451) or redirect to any URL. Automatic log cleanup with configurable retention plus a one-click “Clear Logs” button. Use the plugin settings page (Country Blocker menu in WP admin) to configure the list of allowed countries, blacklisted countries, blacklisted IPs, and whether email alerts are enabled. License This plugin is open-sourced software licensed under the GPLv3 or later. External Services By default this plugin contacts the ip-api.com geolocation service to detect visitor countries. You can disable all external lookups by switching the IP lookup method to the local MaxMind database in the settings.

THE TOP RATED WORDPRESS SECURITY AND FIREWALL PLUGIN All-in-One Security (AIOS) is a WordPress security plugin from the same, trusted team that brought you UpdraftPlus. It’s called ‘All-In-One’ because it’s packed full of ways to keep your WordPress website(s) safe and secure. It includes: Login security features keep bots at bay. Lock out users based on a configurable number of login attempts, get two-factor authentication and more. File and database security. Get notified of file changes that occur outside of normal operations. Block access to key files and scan files and folders to spot insecure permissions. Firewall. Get PHP, .htaccess and 6G firewall rules courtesy of Perishable Press. Spot and block fake Google Bots and more! Spam prevention. Prevent annoying spam comments and reduce unnecessary load on the server. Automatically and permanently block IP addresses that exceed a set number of spam comments. Audit log. View events happening on your WordPress website. Find out if a plugin or theme has been added, removed, updated and more. WHY ALL-IN-ONE SECURITY? AIOS has a near-perfect 4.7 / 5-star user rating across more than 1 million installs. Great for beginners and experts alike. AIOS guides you logically and clearly through each of its features which are all clearly explained. Security features are marked as basic, intermediate and advanced. Each step increases your security score. Turn them on and watch your protection grow! We have a large support team of software developers. That means we have the availability and the skillset to help you with the trickiest of queries. We comb the WordPress plugin directory for support tickets daily – most queries are responded to within 24 hours. Excellent plugin with numerous well-thought-out options for making a website more secure. I have been using it for years and am very happy with it. I recently had a small problem setting up a website and – even as a non-premium user – I received support very quickly. Highly recommended! For even more ways to stay safe and secure, upgrade to AIOS Premium – it packs a punch security-wise, whilst being extremely cost-competitive. LOGIN SECURITY Two-factor authentication (TFA) – Require TFA for specific user roles. Supports Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Authy, and many more. Detect and manage ‘admin’ usernames – Identify default ‘admin’ usernames and guide users to change them to protect against brute force attacks. Identify and correct identical login and display names – Detect cases where the display name matches the username and provide guidance to improve login security. Prevent user enumeration – Block unauthorised access to URLs that can reveal sensitive information such as usernames or other details. Control login attempts – Prevent brute force attacks by limiting the number of failed login attempts. Choose how many login attempts are allowed, set lockout durations, and more. Force user logout – Automatically log out users after a specified period of time. Unattended sessions are closed, reducing the risk of unauthorised access. Manually approve new registrations – Review and approve new user registrations to prevent spam and fake sign-ups. Enhance WordPress salt security – Adds 64 extra characters to WordPress salts, rotating them weekly. Makes cracking passwords virtually impossible, even if your database is stolen. Plugin Support If you have a question or problem with the All-In-One Security plugin, post it on the support forum and we will help you. Premium customers can log queries directly with the team via https://teamupdraft.com/all-in-one-security/ Monitor and manage active sessions – If a user is logged in who shouldn’t be, log them out or add them to a blacklist. SPAM PREVENTION Block spam coming from bots – Reduce the load on your server and improve the user experience by automatically blocking spam comments from bots. Monitor spam IP addresses – Monitor the IP addresses of people or bots leaving spam comments. Choose which ones to block based on a configurable number of comments left. FILE / DATABASE Security Scan and fix file permissions – Scan for insecure file permissions. Click once to fix issues and safeguard critical files and folders. Disable PHP file editing – Disable editing of PHP files (such as plugins and themes) via the dashboard. It’s often the first tool that attackers use as it allows for code execution. Protect sensitive files – Prevent access to files like readme.html that might reveal information about your WordPress installation. File change scanner – Get notified of any file changes which occur on your system. Exclude files and folders which change as part of normal operations. Prevent image hotlinking – Prevent other websites from displaying your images via hotlinking and protect server bandwidth. Secure database backups – Perform a database backup via UpdraftPlus from AIOS. Change the default ‘wp_’ prefix to hide your WordPress database from hackers. FIREWALL Get .htaccess firewall rules – Deny access to the .htaccess and wp-config.php files. Disable the server signature and limit file uploads to a configurable size.** Block access to the debug.log file and prevent Apache servers from listing the contents of a directory when an index.php file is not present Get PHP firewall rules – PHP firewall rules prevent malicious users from exploiting well-known vulnerabilities in XML-RPC. Safeguard your content by disabling RSS and Atom feeds and avoid cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. Block fake Google bots and POST requests made by bots – Block fake Google bots and stop bots from making POST requests by blocking IP addresses where the user-agent and referrer fields are blank. Utilise 6G firewall rules – Employ flexible blacklist rules to reduce the number of malicious URL requests that hit your website (courtesy of Perishable Press). And more – Blacklist (and whitelist) IP ranges and user agents and block unauthorized access to data by disabling REST API access for non-logged-in requests. TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION ENHANCED [Premium] Two-factor authentication is included in the free plugin. Upgrade to Premium if you’d like to: Require TFA after a set time period – Mandate TFA for all admins or other roles after their accounts reach a specified age. Control how often TFA is required – Set TFA to be required after a certain number of days on trusted devices instead of every login. Customise design layout – Adjust the TFA design to match your website’s existing layout and branding. Emergency codes – Generate one-time use emergency codes to regain access if you lose your TFA device. WordPress Multisite Compatible – Ensure compatibility with WordPress multisite networks and their sub-sites for consistent TFA application. Integration with login forms – Integrate TFA with various login forms, including WooCommerce, Affiliates-WP, Elementor Pro, bbPress, and ‘Theme My Login’ without additional coding. SMART 404 BLOCKING [Premium] Block IPs based on 404 errors – Detect hackers probing your URLs via script and bots by the 404 errors they leave behind. Smart 404 Configuration – Set a figure for the maximum number of 404 events allowed before an IP address is blocked. Choose a time period within which the 404 events must occur (e.g., 10 errors within 10 minutes). Smart 404 block by URL string – Instantly block an IP address if a 404 event includes a specific URL string. Smart 404 whitelisting – Prevent particular IP addresses from being permanently blocked due to 404 events. COUNTRY BLOCKING [Premium] Block traffic to the entire site or to specific pages or posts – Useful if you’re an e-commerce site and you want to block sales to some countries for shipping or tax reasons. Whitelist some users from blocked countries – Whitelist IP addresses or IP ranges even if they are part of a blocked country. MALWARE SCANNING [Premium] Automatic malware scanning – Detect and protect against the latest malware, trojans, and spyware. Alerts you to blacklisting by search engines – Monitor your site for blacklisting by search engines due to malicious code. Response time monitoring – Keep track of your website’s response time to identify and address any performance issues. Uptime monitoring – Checks your website’s uptime every 5 minutes and alerts you immediately if your site or server goes down. Advice and malware removal – Need hands-on advice and support for malware removal? Our team of genuine cybersecurity experts is here to help. Notification if something’s amiss – Receive notifications about any issues with your site so you can address problems before they escalate. Plugin Support If you have a question or problem with the All-In-One Security plugin, post it on the support forum and we will help you. Premium customers can log queries directly with the team via https://teamupdraft.com/all-in-one-security Developers If you are a developer and you need some extra hooks or filters for this plugin then let us know. Translations All-In-One Security plugin can be translated to any language. Currently available translations: English German Spanish French Hungarian Italian Swedish Russian Chinese Portuguese (Brazil) Persian Privacy Policy This plugin may collect IP addresses for security reasons such as mitigating brute force login threats and malicious activity. The collected information is stored on your server. No information is transmitted to third parties or remote server locations. Usage Go to the settings menu after you activate the plugin and follow the instructions. Usage Go to the settings menu after you activate the plugin and follow the instructions.