Advanced IP Blocker vs Guard Dog

Advanced IP Blocker is your all-in-one security solution to safeguard your WordPress website from a wide range of threats. This plugin provides a comprehensive suite of tools to automatically detect and block malicious activity, including brute-force attacks, vulnerability scanning, and spam bots. With its intuitive interface, you can easily manage whitelists, blocklists, and view detailed security logs to understand exactly how your site is being protected. Important Note on PHP Version: To ensure maximum security and access to all features, we strongly recommend using PHP 8.1 or higher. Some advanced features (like the local MaxMind database or full 2FA management via WP-CLI) require PHP 8.1. Key Features: * (NEW) File Integrity Scanner (Beta): Instantly detect unauthorized changes to core WordPress files and your active plugins/themes. A vital tool to detect malware infections or backdoor placements on your server. * (NEW) Admin Access Control: Granular control over which administrators can access the plugin’s configuration dashboard. Restrict plugin management while keeping firewall rules intact for all editors and admins. * (NEW) Hardening & Core Protection: Powerful tools to disable WordPress application passwords, turn off the dangerous built-in file editor, block PHP execution in the uploads folder, and hide the WordPress version from attackers. * (NEW) Intelligent Zero-Day WAF Sync: Automatically download and apply critical WAF signatures from the AIB Central Server every day. Stay protected against zero-day vulnerabilities (like wp2shell) without needing to update the plugin manually! The rules run completely independent of your custom WAF configuration. * (NEW) Block Ghost IPs: Automatically block IPs without ASN and Reverse DNS to stop anonymous traffic (Warning: Could cause false positives if rDNS is misconfigured by ISPs). * (NEW) Captcha Integrations (Turnstile & hCaptcha): Seamlessly integrate modern verification challenges like Cloudflare Turnstile and hCaptcha, with granular control per module and a smart fallback to our invisible JS Challenge to prevent accidental lockouts. * (NEW) Rate Limiting Advanced Rules: Create highly specific rate limits for different endpoints. For example, set a strict limit with a Turnstile challenge for /login, while keeping a more generous limit with a temporary block for your main API, all without affecting the rest of the site. * (NEW) Distributed Attack Protection (Auto-Panic): Automatically shields your entire site with a global JS challenge during massive traffic spikes, keeping your server online while intelligently bypassing trusted bots and excluded routes. * IP & ASN Diagnostics Tool: A complete Inspector tool integrated directly into the admin bar. Quickly audit any IP or ASN against your Geolocation database, Threat Scoring system, Spamhaus drops, and manual blocking rules in real-time. * Advanced Rules Import/Export: Seamlessly migrate or backup your complex custom security rules across multiple WordPress websites. With full JSON validation, structural deduplication, and “cost-zero” client-side file generation, agency users can clone their perfect firewall setups in seconds. * Granular JS Challenge Modes: You can now choose exactly how the security challenge behaves. Select “Managed” for ultimate security requiring human interaction (a checkbox), or “Automatic” for an invisible, transparent Proof-of-Work execution that stops bots silently. Apply different modes per module! * Country Selector Copy/Paste: Say goodbye to manually selecting 50+ countries. You can now instantly copy and paste a raw list of 2-letter country codes directly into Geoblocking, Geo-Challenge, and Whitelist Login fields. * AIB Cloud Network V3: Upgrade to the next-generation distributed threat intelligence network. The new API V3 provides secure, individual API Keys per site, drastically improving synchronization reliability, threat telemetry, and global network stability. * Whitelist Login Countries: Take absolute control over administrative access. Easily restrict your WordPress login page and XML-RPC to only allow connections from specific, whitelisted countries, instantly blocking unauthorized foreign login attempts. * (IMPROVED) Bulk Import/Export for Blocked IPs & Whitelist: Seamlessly import massive lists of IPs via CSV or manual entry. The system now features a bulletproof “Bulk Import” type, strict duration inheritance, and intelligent conflict resolution. * Internal Security & Forensics: A complete audit suite solely for WordPress. Track every sensitive event (plugin installs, settings changes, user logins) and monitor your critical files for unauthorized modifications with the integrated File Integrity Monitor. * Activity Audit Log: Gain complete visibility into what’s happening on your site. Who deactivated a plugin? Who changed a setting? The Audit Log answers these questions with timestamped, immutable records. * Deep Scan Email Reports: Get a weekly security summary delivered to your inbox, detailing pending updates, vulnerability status, and recent attack trends. * Username Blocking & Rules: Gain granular control over login security. Creating Advanced Rules to block, challenge, or score specific usernames (e.g., “admin”, “test”). * Enhanced Lockdown Notifications: Distributed Lockdowns (404/403) now fully support Email and Push notifications, ensuring you never miss a critical security event. * Improved Logging: New “Endpoint Challenge” event type provides deeper visibility into challenges served during automated lockdowns. * Server IP Reputation Check. Instantly audit your web server’s IP address against major blacklists (Spamhaus, AbuseIPDB) to diagnose SEO and email delivery issues. * **HTTP Security Headers. Easily configure essential security headers like HSTS, X-Frame-Options, and Permissions-Policy to harden your site against clickjacking, sniffing, and other browser-based attacks. Includes a “Report-Only” mode for CSP. * Site Health & Vulnerability Scanner. Audit your WordPress environment instantly. Detects outdated plugins, insecure PHP versions, and checks your installed plugins against a database of 30,000+ known vulnerabilities. * **PERFORMANCE BOOST: High-Speed Community Database. Migrated the “Community Defense Network” blocklist to a dedicated, indexed database table. This allows checking thousands of malicious IPs in microseconds with zero impact on site memory usage. * **Community Defense Network. Join forces with other WordPress admins. The plugin now shares anonymous attack data to build a global, real-time blocklist of verified threats. Protect your site with community-powered intelligence. * **Auto-Cleaning Logic. Smart expiration handling ensures your blocklists stay fresh and performant, automatically removing stale IPs from both the database and external firewalls (Cloudflare/.htaccess). * **Cloud Edge Defense (Cloudflare). Connect your site directly to Cloudflare’s global network. Automatically sync your blocklists to the cloud to stop attackers before they reach your server. Zero server load protection. * **Server-Level Firewall (.htaccess). Extreme performance upgrade. Write blocking rules and file hardening protections directly to your .htaccess file. Blocks threats instantly without loading PHP or WordPress. * **IMPROVED: Smart Bot Verification. Enhanced logic to correctly identify legitimate traffic from iOS devices (iCloud Private Relay) and social media previews, eliminating false positives while keeping impostors out. * **File Hardening. Protect your most sensitive files (wp-config.php, readme.html, .git) at the server level with a single click. * AbuseIPDB Integration. Proactively block attackers before they strike. The plugin can now check visitor IPs against AbuseIPDB’s real-time, crowdsourced database of malicious IPs and block those with a high abuse score on their very first request. * Edge Firewall Mode! Protect any PHP file or standalone application within your WordPress directory (even if it’s not part of WordPress). Ideal for securing custom scripts, legacy applications, or folders like /scan/. (Requires manual configuration). * Advanced Rules Engine! Create powerful, custom security rules with multiple conditions (IP, Country, ASN, URI, User-Agent, Request Method, Referer) and actions (Block, Challenge, or add Threat Score). * Known Bot Verification. A powerful new security layer that uses reverse DNS lookups to verify legitimate crawlers like Googlebot and Bingbot. This completely neutralizes attackers who try to bypass security rules by faking their User-Agent, assigning high threat scores to impostors. * Verify Monitoring Bots (IP List). A brand new feature that downloads and caches official IP lists from popular uptime monitoring services (like UptimeRobot and Pingdom) to ensure they are never incorrectly blocked or challenged. * Onboarding Setup Wizard. A brand new step-by-step wizard that guides new users through the essential security configurations (IP whitelisting, WAF, and bot traps) in under a minute, ensuring a strong security posture from day one. * Major Refactor: Codebase Modernization. The entire plugin architecture has been refactored into a modern, modular structure. Logic for admin pages, AJAX, actions, and settings is now handled by dedicated classes, making the plugin more stable, performant, and easier to maintain and extend in the future. * Advanced IP Spoofing Protection. A zero-trust “Trusted Proxies” system ensures the plugin always identifies the true visitor IP, even behind complex setups like Cloudflare or a custom reverse proxy. It neutralizes attacks that attempt to fake their IP, preventing block evasion and the framing of innocent users. * Geo-Challenge. A smarter way to handle traffic from high-risk countries. Instead of a hard block, it presents a quick, invisible JavaScript challenge that stops bots but is seamless for human visitors. This reduces unwanted traffic without affecting potential legitimate users. * ENHANCEMENT: Full Bulk-Action Support. IP management is now faster than ever. Both the Whitelist and the Blocked IPs list now support full bulk actions, allowing you to select and remove multiple entries at once, or unblock all IPs with a single click. * Endpoint Lockdown Mode: Automatically shields wp-login.php and xmlrpc.php with a JavaScript challenge during sustained distributed attacks, preventing server overload. * Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): Secure user accounts with industry-standard TOTP authentication, backup codes, role enforcement, and a central admin management dashboard. * IP Trust & Threat Scoring System: An intelligent defense that assigns “threat points” to IPs for malicious actions, blocking them only when they reach a configurable score. More accurate and context-aware than simple rules. * Attack Signature Engine: Proactively stops distributed botnet attacks by identifying and blocking the attacker’s “fingerprint” (signature) instead of just individual IPs. * Web Application Firewall (WAF): Block malicious requests (SQLi, XSS, etc.) with a customizable ruleset. * File Integrity Monitor & Quarantine Vault: Automatically scans WordPress core files and the uploads directory for malware, unauthorized modifications, and hidden PHP shells. Safely neutralize threats by moving them to an encrypted Quarantine Vault. * And much more: Rate Limiting, Country & ASN Blocking (with Spamhaus support), ASN Whitelisting, Push Notifications, Google reCAPTCHA, Honeypots, Active User Session Management, and Full WP-CLI Support.

Guard Dog is a focused WordPress security plugin for the login door, authentication, sessions, and practical access workflows. With custom login URLs, two-factor authentication, passkeys, CAPTCHA providers, access control, and activity logging, Guard Dog helps site owners tighten the parts of WordPress that get bothered most. Key Features: Custom Login URLs – Hide your wp-admin and wp-login.php from attackers Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) – TOTP-based authentication with recovery codes Social Login (OAuth) – Sign in with Google, Microsoft, or Apple Passkeys – Use device-based biometric authentication like Face ID, Touch ID or Windows Hello Multiple CAPTCHA Providers – Support for Google reCAPTCHA v2/v3, hCaptcha, and Cloudflare Turnstile Login Attempt Limiting – Prevent brute-force attacks with intelligent lockout Access Control – IP-based whitelist/blacklist protection Activity Monitoring – Comprehensive logging of security events Temporary User Access – Create temporary WordPress users with time-limited, secure access Frontend Account Security – Shortcodes and blocks for login, passkeys, 2FA, and session controls Why Choose Guard Dog? Privacy-Focused – Multiple CAPTCHA options including privacy-first providers WordPress.org Compliant – Built following WordPress coding standards Site-Owned Controls – Protections run inside your WordPress site User-Friendly – Intuitive interface with helpful documentation Regular Updates – Actively maintained and updated Perfect For: Business websites requiring enhanced security WordPress sites handling sensitive data Multi-user sites with complex access requirements Anyone wanting practical login and account protection without a central SaaS dependency Frontend Shortcodes: [guard_dog_login_form] renders a public Guard Dog-managed login form [guard_dog_passkey_login] renders a standalone passkey sign-in button for custom login pages [guard_dog_two_factor] renders logged-in 2FA management [guard_dog_passkeys] renders logged-in passkey management [guard_dog_sessions] renders logged-in active-session management [guard_dog_account_security] renders the composite logged-in account security widget for 2FA, passkeys, and sessions [guard_dog_2fa] remains supported as the legacy alias for the account security widget Block-based themes can use the matching Guard Dog Login Form, Passkey Login, Two-Factor Auth, Passkeys, Sessions, and Account Security blocks. Additional Information Support: For support questions, please use the WordPress.org support forums. Privacy: Guard Dog respects user privacy and offers multiple privacy-focused options. Third-party services are only contacted when you enable features that need them, such as CAPTCHA, email delivery, social login, IP reputation, or geolocation. Security: Guard Dog follows WordPress security best practices. User input is sanitized and output is escaped throughout the plugin. Third-Party Services Guard Dog integrates with the following third-party services to provide CAPTCHA protection. These services are optional and only used when CAPTCHA features are enabled. Google reCAPTCHA (v2 and v3) What it is: Google’s CAPTCHA service that helps protect websites from spam and abuse. What it’s used for: – Verifying that login, registration, and password reset attempts are made by humans – Preventing automated bot attacks on your WordPress forms What data is sent and when: – User interaction data (mouse movements, time spent on page) when CAPTCHA is solved – IP address of the user – Site domain for verification – CAPTCHA response token Privacy and Terms: – Google reCAPTCHA Privacy Policy – Google reCAPTCHA Terms of Service – Google reCAPTCHA Data Usage Cloudflare Turnstile What it is: Cloudflare’s privacy-first CAPTCHA alternative that doesn’t require user interaction. What it’s used for: – Invisible verification of human users during login, registration, and password reset – Privacy-focused protection without tracking or cookies What data is sent and when: – Non-interactive browser signals when forms are submitted – IP address for verification – Site domain for validation Privacy and Terms: – Cloudflare Privacy Policy – Cloudflare Terms of Service – Turnstile Documentation hCaptcha What it is: A privacy-focused CAPTCHA service that doesn’t track users across websites. What it’s used for: – Human verification during login, registration, and password reset forms – Privacy-conscious alternative to Google reCAPTCHA What data is sent and when: – User interaction with CAPTCHA challenge – IP address for verification – Site domain for validation Privacy and Terms: – hCaptcha Privacy Policy – hCaptcha Terms of Service – hCaptcha Data Processing Google OAuth (Social Login) What it is: Google’s OAuth 2.0 service that allows users to sign in using their Google account. What it’s used for: – Authenticating WordPress users via their Google account – Retrieving basic profile information (name, email) to link or create accounts What data is sent and when: – User is redirected to Google’s authorization server when clicking “Sign in with Google” – An authorization code is exchanged for an access token on your server – Basic profile information (name, email, Google user ID) is retrieved from Google’s API – No ongoing data sharing – data is only retrieved during the login process Privacy and Terms: – Google OAuth Privacy Policy – Google OAuth Terms of Service – Google API Services User Data Policy Microsoft Azure AD (Social Login) What it is: Microsoft’s OAuth 2.0 service via Azure Active Directory that allows users to sign in using their Microsoft account. What it’s used for: – Authenticating WordPress users via their personal Microsoft account or organizational (work/school) account – Retrieving basic profile information (name, email) to link or create accounts What data is sent and when: – User is redirected to Microsoft’s authorization server when clicking “Sign in with Microsoft” – An authorization code is exchanged for an access token and ID token (JWT) on your server – Basic profile information (name, email, Azure object ID) is extracted from the ID token – No ongoing data sharing – data is only retrieved during the login process Privacy and Terms: – Microsoft Privacy Statement – Microsoft Services Agreement – Microsoft Identity Platform Documentation Apple Sign In (Social Login) What it is: Apple’s OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect service that allows users to sign in using their Apple ID. What it’s used for: – Authenticating WordPress users via their Apple ID – Retrieving basic profile information (name, email) to link or create accounts What data is sent and when: – User is redirected to Apple’s authorization server when clicking “Sign in with Apple” – An authorization code is exchanged for an access token and ID token (JWT) on your server – Basic profile information (email, user ID) is extracted from the ID token – User’s name is only provided on first authorization; subsequent logins return only the user ID – Apple may provide a private relay email address instead of the user’s real email – No ongoing data sharing – data is only retrieved during the login process Privacy and Terms: – Apple Privacy Policy – Sign in with Apple Guidelines – Apple Developer Program License Agreement TOTP (Time-based One-Time Password) Standard What it is: An open standard (RFC 6238) for generating time-based one-time passwords used in two-factor authentication. What it’s used for: – Generating secure, time-limited authentication codes for 2FA – Providing backup authentication when primary 2FA methods are unavailable – Enabling compatibility with popular authenticator apps (Google Authenticator, Authy, Microsoft Authenticator, etc.) What data is sent and when: – No external data transmission – TOTP codes are generated locally using the TOTP algorithm – Secret key generation – A unique secret key is generated locally when 2FA is enabled for a user – QR code generation – QR codes are generated locally for easy setup with authenticator apps – Code verification – Generated codes are verified locally against the stored secret key Privacy and Terms: – RFC 6238 – TOTP Standard – Google Authenticator Privacy Policy (if using Google Authenticator app) – Authy Privacy Policy (if using Authy app) – Microsoft Authenticator Privacy Policy (if using Microsoft Authenticator app) Data Handling Summary When CAPTCHA is disabled: No data is sent to any third-party services. When CAPTCHA is enabled: Only the specific provider you choose receives verification data. Data is not shared between providers or stored by Guard Dog beyond the verification process. When 2FA is disabled: No external data transmission occurs. When 2FA is enabled: – All TOTP operations (code generation, verification) happen locally on your server – No data is transmitted to external services for 2FA functionality – Authenticator apps only receive the initial setup QR code or secret key – Recovery codes are generated locally and stored securely When Social Login is disabled: No data is sent to any OAuth provider. When Social Login is enabled: – Data is only sent to the configured providers (Google, Microsoft, Apple) during the login process – Only basic profile information (name, email, user ID) is retrieved – Social account links are stored locally in your WordPress database – Users can unlink their social accounts from their profile at any time User control: Users can choose which CAPTCHA provider to use, or disable CAPTCHA entirely. 2FA can be enabled/disabled per user, and users can choose their preferred authenticator app. Social login can be enabled/disabled by administrators, and users can manage their linked social accounts. All security features are optional and configurable.