Kadence Security – Password, Two Factor Authentication, and Brute Force Protection vs Gauntlet Security

Reduce your WordPress website’s risk to nearly zero with Kadence Security Formerly iThemes Security. Looking for iThemes? Learn more here. On average, 30,000 websites are hacked every day.* Cyberattacks in the US increased by 57% in 2022.** Bad actors who want to hack your site, steal your data, and cripple your business are a 24/7/365 threat. You need a proactive, strategic approach to WordPress website security that protects your site from brute force attacks, malware infections, and other cyber threats. Kadence Security shields your site from cyberattacks and prevents security vulnerabilities. It automatically locks out bad users identified by our Brute Force Protection Network that is nearly 1 million sites strong and leverages your own blacklist. It secures and protects your most commonly attacked part of your WordPress website – user login authentication. With Patchstack integration (Pro) protects your site before you even have a chance to address vulnerabilities and before a plugin or theme vendor or developer can even issue a patch. That’s 24/7/365 always-on truly Kadence Security. 🌐 Secure your Website in Minutes The Kadence Security setup and onboarding experience allows anyone to secure their WordPress website in under 10 minutes, regardless of technical acumen. Knowing that you have enabled all the right security settings for your website will leave you feeling like your site has never been more secure. 📚 Security Site Templates to Fit Your Type of Site Enabling the correct security settings based on the type of website you are building or maintaining is essential for proper security. An eCommerce site requires a different level of security than a basic blog. Kadence Security Site Templates make it quick and easy to apply the right security settings for your website. Choose from six different site templates to apply the type of security your site needs: Ecommerce – websites that sell products or services Network – websites that connect people or communities Non-Profit – websites that promote your cause and collect donations Blog – websites that share your thoughts or start a conversation Portfolio – websites that showcase your craft Brochure – simple websites that promote your business ⌚ Real-Time Website Security Dashboard Every day, lots of activity is happening on your website that you can’t see. Many of these activities can be related to your site’s security, so monitoring these events is vital to keeping your site secure. The Kadence Security Pro plugin provides a real-time WordPress security dashboard that monitors security-related events on your site around the clock. The Kadence Security Dashboard is a dynamic dashboard with all your WordPress website’s security activity stats in one place, including brute force attacks, banned users, active lockouts, site scan results, and user security stats (Pro). 🗝️ WordPress Login Security Setting up and maintaining proper WordPress configurations and managing user account access are essential aspects of hardening your site against threats and vulnerabilities. Basic and Pro include features that address both of these factors. Two Factor Authentication (2FA) – Make your WordPress login nearly impenetrable to attack by requiring users to enter a security code along with a password to login. The Kadence Security plugin allows you to add two-factor authentication to your WordPress login with several authentication methods, including mobile apps like Authy and Google Authenticator, email, and backup codes. Password Requirements – Create and enforce a password policy for your users in less than a minute. reCAPTCHA (Pro) – Stop bad bots from engaging in abusive activities on your website, such as attempting to break into your website using compromised passwords, posting spam, or even scraping your content. Passwordless Logins (Pro) – WordPress security made easy. Secure your user accounts with 2fa & strong passwords while allowing real users login with a click of a mouse. Trusted Devices (Pro) – Identify the devices you and other users use to block session hijacking attacks and limit Administrator privileges to Trusted Devices. Automated Vulnerability Patching (Pro) – Kadence Security Pro includes Patchstack which patches vulnerabilities before you have a chance to and applies fixes even before a plugin developer or vendor has issued a patch. Learn more about how passwordless login is the future and how Kadence Security can help you implement it today. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 The Right Amount of Security for Every User Level Different types of user levels require different levels of security. During the Kadence Security setup process, you can identify your website’s key user groups. Once the different types of users are identified, you can apply the level of security that is just right for each user group. Here are a couple of examples of how User Groups are useful for securing your site: For Clients – Let’s say you are configuring Kadence Security on a client’s website. You will decide whether or not they are required to use two-factor authentication and if they should have access to the Kadence Security settings. For Customers – If you have an eCommerce website, you will decide whether or not you want to protect customer accounts with a password policy. Privilege Escalation (Pro) also adds a safe, secure way to grant temporary admin-level access to your website. 🤖 Block Bad Bots & Ban User Agents with Lockouts Ban Users (Basic and Pro) – Permanently block repeat offenders from accessing your site. Local Brute Force Protection – Automatically identify and stop the most common method of attack on WordPress sites. Local Brute Force Protection (Basic and Pro) – Automatically identify and stop the most common method of attack on WordPress sites. Network Brute Force Protection (Basic and Pro) – The network is the Kadence Security community and is nearly one million websites strong. If someone tries to break into websites in the Kadence Security community, Kadence Security will block them across the network. Magic Links (Pro) – Security shouldn’t get in your way. Magic Links allow you to log in to your WordPress site while your username is locked out by the Kadence Security Local Brute Force Protection feature. 🔍 Monitor Your Site’s Security Health File Change Detection (Basic and Pro) – Kadence Security logs changes made to your website that can help detect malicious activity on your website. Site Scanner (Basic and Pro) – Schedule checks to run four times per day (Basic) or hourly (Pro) for known vulnerabilities of WordPress core file, plugins and themes. Using the Google Safe Browsing API, the Site Scan also checks your Google’s blocklist status and will alert you if Google has found any malware on your website. Patchstack integration (Pro) – Automated virtual patching of some vulnerabilities before you even have a chance to address them yourself, and before a plugin or theme vendor or developer can even issue a patch. Site Scanner (Pro) – Unlock Version Management to automatically apply a patch to vulnerable software detected by the Site Scan when one is available. User Logging (Pro) – Keep a record of user activity in your WordPress security logs, including login/logout, user registration, adding/removing plugins, switching themes, changes to posts and pages, and more. Version Management (Pro) – The Version Management feature in Kadence Security Pro allows you to auto-update WordPress, plugins, and themes. Beyond that, Version Management also has options to harden your website when you are running outdated software and scan for old websites. 🧠 Smarter, More Actionable Vulnerability Prioritization Not all vulnerabilities pose the same level of risk, and the traditional Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score doesn’t always reflect the realities of running a WordPress site. Kadence Security now uses the Patchstack Priority score, which goes beyond CVSS to provide a real-world risk assessment tailored to WordPress. It factors in how likely a vulnerability is to be exploited and its actual impact on your site. With Patchstack Priority, you get a clearer picture of what really matters, helping you focus on the vulnerabilities that pose the greatest risk, and worry less about noise from low-impact issues. 🛠️ Website Security Utilities Enforce SSL – Force all connections to the website to be made over SSL/TLS. Database Backups – Create backups of your WordPress database. (Not a complete backup.) Geolocation (Pro) – Improve Trusted Devices by connecting to an external location or mapping API. 🚀 Advanced Security Tools Identify Server IPs – Prevent issues caused by inadvertently locking out your server IPs. Change User ID 1 – Change the user ID for the first WordPress user, potentially preventing attacks that assume the user with ID1 exists and is an administrator. Change Database Prefix – Change the database prefix that WordPress uses, potentially preventing attacks that assume the database prefix is “wp_”. Check File Permission – See the file and directory permissions of key areas of your site. Server Config Rules – View or flush the server security rules generated by Kadence Security. wp-config.php Rules – View or flush the wp-config.php security rules generated by Kadence Security. Change WordPress Salts – Secure your site after a successful attack by changing the WordPress salts used to secure cookies and security tokens. Hide Login URL – change the login URL of your site, making it harder for bots to find your login page and attack it. 🛟 Need Help? Free support may be available with the community’s help in the WordPress.org support forums. Our Kadence Security support team provides top-notch technical support to all our Kadence Security Basic users there. Our Help Center will help you become an iThemes Security expert. Get additional peace of mind with professional support from our expert team and pro features to take your site’s security to the next level with Kadence Security Pro. Recover From a Hacked Site Kadence Security makes regular backups of your WordPress database, allowing you to get back online quickly in the event of a hack or security breach. Use Kadence Security to create and email database backups on a customizable schedule. For complete site backups and the ability to restore or move WordPress to a new host or domain, check out Solid Backups. Solid Central Integration Manage more than one WordPress site? Release lockouts and keep your themes, plugins, and WordPress core up to date from one dashboard with Solid Central. *Zippia. “30 Crucial Cybersecurity Statistics [2023]: Data, Trends And More” Zippia.com. Jun. 15, 2023, https://www.zippia.com/advice/cybersecurity-statistics/ **https://blog.checkpoint.com/2023/01/05/38-increase-in-2022-global-cyberattacks/ License Released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

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 Turn off file editing in the control panel Set security keys in WP-Config file Don’t advertise the WordPress version you are running Turn off self-registration Force SSL when accessing the admin area Review the development activity and reputation of all plugins Remove unused themes from the server Rename the plugin directory Move the active theme to an alternate location Do not use TimThumb Do not use common user names (such as “admin”) Do not use weak passwords Do not have a user with an ID = 1 Minimize the number of admin users Users should not display their login usernames publicly Prevent username enumeration through standard author URLs …more tests planned Check the screenshots for more detail on some of the above features. Many of these security checks are based on recommendations from the WordPress codex: https://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress. Disclaimer Some of the tips included in this plugin only require making small changes to configuration files (.htaccess, php.ini, wp-config.php, functions.php). Others require more in-depth changes to the filesystem or database. Before attempting any of these fixes, you should be comfortable experimenting and know how to undo any change you make. That includes making backups and knowing how restore your site from those backups. I can’t guarantee that the recommendations or sample code provided in this plugin will not break your site or that they will prevent it from being hacked. Requirements Apache web server WordPress 3.4 minimum PHP 5.2.7 minimum