Shield Security – Smart Bot Blocking, Brute-Force Login Protection & File Scanning vs Banhammer – Monitor Site Traffic, Block Bad Users and Bots

⚡ Banhammer: Protect your site against enemy hordes! Banhammer gives you full control over who and what may access your site. Visit the Armory to monitor traffic and review suspicious visitors. If you find some user or bot that is causing problems, you can ban them with a click. Or, if you just want to keep an eye on someone, you can flag them with a warning. Any banned users will be denied access to your site, until you restore access via the Tower. Check out the video and screenshots to get a better idea of how it works. 👉 Important: Not yet compatible with WP Multisite! Core Features Ban or Warn any WP user or IP address Restore access to any banned targets Monitor site traffic in the Armory Monitor logged users in the Admin Area Monitor all visitors on the front-end Manage banned targets in the Tower Complete Ajax-powered navigation Useful tools like jump, sort, search Complete documentation via Help tab Automatically clear logged data Sound effects for Ban, Warn, et al NEW: manually block any IP address Options Galore Optionally ignore logged-in users Optionally protect Login Page and Admin Area Customize the banned response and status code Display banned message or redirect the request Choose the interval to clear logged data One-click restore plugin default options All collected data may be deleted easily More Features Easy to use Clean code Fast and secure Built with WP API Lightweight and flexible Regularly updated and “future proof” Works great with any WordPress theme Comprehensive search of all logged data Works great with other WordPress plugins Works with or without Gutenberg Block Editor Focused on usability, performance, and security Banhammer is perfect for site owners, admins, and developers who want to keep an eye on traffic and block any unwanted visitors. It is a simple, flexible, and powerful security solution. Perfect for the best WordPress sites. Exclusive Features in Pro Version Ban based on URI request, referrer, or user agent Whitelist any IP address or user agent View cookies, POST data, and FILES data Email Alerts for banned & warned requests Display custom message to each banned target Add private notes to warned/banned targets Customize target strings for user agents, IPs, etc. Disable logging of banned, warned, and whitelisted targets Smart bot detection Paged results in Tower User avatars in Tower For complete documentation, visit the Help tab on any Banhammer screen. ⚡ Banhammer Pro now available » Privacy User Data: Banhammer collects user data to “do its thing”. The collected data is temporary and automatically deleted every day, or at whatever time interval is specified in the plugin settings. The only time that any data is “remembered” is when you ban something. For each person/thing that you ban, the plugin stores either the IP address OR the username (never both). At any time, all saved data may be deleted permanently via the plugin settings and Armory Tools. Cookies: Banhammer does not set any cookies for regular visitors, but does set a few simple cookies for admin-level users. These simple cookies enable dope effects and interactivity in the Armory and Tower UI. But no cookies are set or used for any other visitor/user or purpose. Services: Banhammer uses a free lookup service for GeoIP information. This happens only for admin-level users when they are viewing data in the Armory or Tower. No other third-party services are used by this plugin. Banhammer is developed and maintained by Jeff Starr, 15-year WordPress developer and book author. Support development I develop and maintain this free plugin with love for the WordPress community. To show support, you can make a donation or purchase one of my books: The Tao of WordPress Digging into WordPress .htaccess made easy WordPress Themes In Depth Wizard’s SQL Recipes for WordPress And/or purchase one of my premium WordPress plugins: BBQ Pro – Blazing fast WordPress firewall Blackhole Pro – Automatically block bad bots Banhammer Pro – Monitor traffic and ban the bad guys GA Google Analytics Pro – Connect WordPress to Google Analytics Head Meta Pro – Ultimate Meta Tags for WordPress REST Pro Tools – Awesome tools for managing the WP REST API Simple Ajax Chat Pro – Unlimited chat rooms USP Pro – Unlimited front-end forms Links, tweets and likes also appreciated. Thank you! 🙂

Most security plugins hand you a dashboard full of alerts and expect you to know what to do next. Shield works differently. It blocks threats automatically, repairs what it can on its own, and then shows you exactly what still needs your attention — ranked by impact, not volume. Less noise. More action. 🤖 Security That Runs Itself The most powerful thing Shield does is what it handles without you: Automatic IP Blocking — every visitor is quietly scored as they interact with your site. Failed logins, firewall blocks, silentCAPTCHA failures, and other signals accumulate into a reputation score. When a visitor’s score crosses the threshold, Shield blocks them — automatically, without you lifting a finger Automatic File Repair — when a file integrity scan finds a changed WordPress core file, Shield pulls the original from WordPress.org and restores it. Detected and fixed, without waiting for you to act Automatic Bot Recognition — Shield identifies legitimate crawlers (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Apple) and known services (ManageWP, Pingdom, Stripe, CloudFlare) and never blocks them. Your SEO and monitoring tools keep working 🧭 Guided Security, Not Just a Dashboard Shield organises your security into four focused areas so you always know where to look: Queue — things that need your attention, ranked by priority. Not everything at once — just what matters right now Investigate — dig into blocked IPs, security events, and the specific signals that triggered each one Configure — guided setup for each protection area, with clear recommendations matched to your site Reports — a clear view of what Shield has blocked, detected, and repaired over time The goal: guide you quickly towards action, not bury you in data. 🛡️ Free Protection Bot Blocking & Firewall silentCAPTCHA — blocks bad bots on login, registration, lost password, and comment forms using passive signals invisible to real visitors. No CAPTCHA keys. No external requests. No JavaScript that breaks your forms. Everything runs on your server (GDPR friendly). Firewall rules blocking common WordPress attack patterns — SQL injection probes, known exploit signatures, suspicious request parameters XML-RPC protection — disable or restrict entirely, including pingbacks and trackbacks REST API firewall — block unauthenticated requests Fake crawler detection — identifies bots spoofing legitimate search engines Login & Account Security Two-factor authentication (2FA) — email codes, Google Authenticator, or YubiKey OTP for all users Brute force protection with configurable login attempt limits and cooldown Session locking — tie sessions to a browser or IP to stop account theft after a successful login User enumeration blocking — closes off ?author= probes used to harvest usernames before an attack Scanning & Integrity Core file scanning — compares WordPress core against official checksums and repairs changed files automatically Suspicious PHP detection — flags PHP files in locations where they have no business being Abandoned plugin detection — identifies unmaintained plugins most likely to carry unpatched vulnerabilities Visibility & Control Security Admin PIN — lock Shield’s own settings so other administrators cannot quietly weaken your configuration Security activity log — logins, user changes, plugin and theme events, post edits, and suspicious requests: Everything in one clear view IP Rules — automatic & manual block and bypass rules, CIDR range support, full per-IP request history 🤝 CrowdSec Integration Shield is the only WordPress security plugin with a native CrowdSec integration. CrowdSec aggregates threat signals from millions of sites into a shared IP reputation network — your site blocks known attackers before they ever probe you, using intelligence far beyond your own traffic history. ShieldBACKUPS Disaster Recovery ShieldPRO includes ShieldBACKUPS: fast, off-site WordPress backups built for recovery after hacks, broken updates, or server failure. Your backup is kept away from the site it protects, so you have a clean recovery path when WordPress itself is down, damaged, or under attack. There are no cloud storage costs, backups are encrypted and copied securely, and there are no storage API keys or authentication details stored on your WordPress site. ✨ ShieldPRO ShieldBACKUPS — off-site backups and disaster recovery for WordPress sites Passkeys — phishing-resistant, passwordless login for users Backup login codes — emergency 2FA access when a device is lost AI-based malware scanner — detects known and unknown PHP malware Plugin & theme file scanning — compares installed files against WordPress.org originals, flagging unauthorised changes Vulnerability scanning — active checks across all installed plugins and themes Broader spam protection — WooCommerce, EDD, Contact Form 7, Ninja Forms, Elementor, and more Traffic rate limiting — cap request rates per IP to absorb high-volume bot floods User suspension — manual or automatic suspension of idle accounts MainWP integration White Label — rename and rebrand Shield for client sites Who It’s For Shield suits site owners, agencies, and MSPs who want protection that runs itself — not a plugin that demands constant attention to be useful. If you have been burned by security plugins that generate more noise than protection, or dashboards that tell you everything is wrong without telling you what to fix, Shield was built to be the alternative. Partnerships & Integrations We believe that silentCAPTCHA is one of the simplest and most powerful solutions available today for all WordPress site owners to block and eliminate automated bot spam. That’s why we’ve started a collaboration campaign with other WordPress plugin developers to adapt their plugins to natively support Shield’s silentCAPTCHA solution, alongside Google reCAPTCHA & Cloudflare Turnstile. When you use one of the products from any of our partners, you will be able to activate Shield’s silentCAPTCHA bot spam protection so that your forms are protected from automated spam. You won’t need any site/API keys, custom integrations, or JavaScript that can break your forms. It all works automatically for you when you enable the feature. As of this release, we have partnered with the following WordPress form providers: Everest Forms v3.5+ Easy Form Builder v4+