Kadence Security – Password, Two Factor Authentication, and Brute Force Protection vs Malcure Malware Shield

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.

Is your website acting strangely? Seeing ‘Deceptive Site Ahead’ warnings, Japanese SEO hack, or random redirects? Time to fix and monitor your site with Malcure Malware Shield. Malcure Malware Shield scans for infections, runs silent scheduled scans, and sends alerts before threats spread — turning one-time cleanup into always-on protection. Malcure scans files, databases, and user accounts to find malware casual scanners miss — backdoors hidden in images, injections in your database, rogue, hidden admin accounts buried in your tables that don’t show up in the admin area. Then it watches your site with scheduled scans and alerts, so one-time cleanup becomes always-on protection. Detection runs against 50,000+ signatures with real-time threat intelligence — the same definitions for every user, free or paid. You see every infection with exact file paths and line numbers. Activate → Scan → Know → Monitor What Our Users Say Quotes are verbatim from WordPress.org support reviews, except for bracketed edits (for example, competitor names removed). Best by far, better than [competitor name removed] and other giants “You can see it is a bunch of geeks that created this, with skill and visual creativity at that. I spent hours trying to find a plugin like this. So many options and such bad results until now. Great job guys. You deserve it. Simple and effective. (Disclaimer to other potential readers: there are many types of hacks/malware out there, every scenario is different, but start with the Malcure scan and see how it goes. 9/10 you won’t be disappointed, my guess)” — @dalingzaf The ONLY plugin that scans every file-type… “I am a web developer and have tried many malware removal plugins, including popular ones [competitor names removed]. However, none of them detected some unusual files that were actually malware causing regular attacks. Some of these files were in JPG format.” — @devzeeshanx Best Malware Removal Plugin in just few minutes “Most security plugins that are free only scan the code, but Malcure Malware Removal Plugin scans the wordpress database and the code files in few minutes. Accurately shows which Database table row is infected and it helps resolve the hacking attempt instantly. Saves a lot of time for the developers. Thank You Team Malcure” — @s3630 It’s not just a “teaser” “This plugin really found the malware, and removed it. Really for free. Thanks guys, I’m going to donate now!” — @halucska What Malcure Does Detection Upload Scanner: Every file uploaded through WordPress (Media Library, REST API, plugins, sideloads) is scanned in real time. Infected files are blocked and deleted before they reach the filesystem. Note: this catches uploads that go through the WordPress upload API. Files written directly to disk by exploited themes/plugins or external scripts are caught by the next malware scan. File Scan: Core files, themes, plugins, images, uploads — backdoors, shells, obfuscated code, and malware hidden inside image files and archives. Database Scan: Finds malicious injections, recurring malware, and SEO injection links that other non-thorough scanners never see. User Scan: Detects rogue admin accounts and compromised metadata, including application passwords that bypass your login page. DeepScan™: Scans every file-type without skipping within resource-limits and hidden files where malware hides. Checksum Verification: Compares your core, plugin, and theme files against official repository checksums. Tampered files are flagged by severity. SEO Hack Detection: Catches Japanese Keyword Hack, Pharma Hack, and other SEO hacks in page titles and database records. Vulnerability Scanner: Checks installed plugins and themes against a real-time vulnerability database. Checksum Intelligence: Checksum-based verification reduces false alarms compared to heuristic-only scanners. 50,000+ Signatures: Detects known variants — C99, R57, RootShell, and many more — plus unknown threats via behavioral analysis. Monitoring & Alerts Scheduled Scans: Set a cadence — daily, weekly, or monthly. Runs silently in the background. Weekly Security Pulse Email: A verdict-first security-critical weekly summary — gives you a heads-up — “All Clear”, “Please Review”, or “Needs Immediate Attention” — delivered to your inbox. Covers scan results, failed logins, privileged activity, file edits, and updates. Scheduled Scan Results Email: Email report of scheduled scans — clean or infected. Know immediately when a scheduled scan finishes. Gives you early heads-up if malware found and before it spreads and affects SEO or gets the site blacklisted. Configurable Recipients: Choose who gets notified. Licensee, Registrant and additional CC recipients. Send a test Pulse to verify your mail configuration. Event Log: 100-day forensic record of every security event for root-cause analysis. Session Inspector: See who’s logged in — IP, user-agent, login time, and session expiration. Hardening & Firewall Block Path Traversal: Stops attackers from accessing sensitive system files. Block PHP Uploads: Prevents malicious scripts from being uploaded. Stop User Enumeration: Blocks bots from fishing for usernames. REST API Protection: Prevents user data leakage via the WP REST API. Attack Counter: See how many attacks the firewall has blocked, right on your dashboard. Incident Response Session Nuke: Force-logout every user instantly to kick out intruders. Salt Shuffler: One-click rotation of security keys (salts) to invalidate all browser cookies. Real-Time Threat Intelligence Zero-Day: Threat definitions served in real time via the Malcure Cloud. No days-long delay. Google Search Console: Connect directly to fetch security warnings and blacklist status. Privacy: Scans send file checksums and your site’s domain to Malcure servers. No sensitive user data is transmitted. Use of the API is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Lightweight: Runs only on demand or on schedule. No persistent background processes. No bloat. Dashboard & Experience Dashboard Widget: At-a-glance malware status, attack count, and quick-scan CTA on the WP dashboard. Admin Skins: Classic and Dark skins to match your workflow. Scan Completion Audio Preferences: Configure sound-notifications for scans. Diagnostics Page: Environment diagnostics for troubleshooting. Who This Plugin Is For Agencies and developers who need fast triage across multiple sites. WooCommerce, membership, and lead-gen sites where downtime and SEO damage are expensive. Site owners who want clear results — what was flagged, exactly where. How It Works (Scan → Review → Clean → Monitor) Scan — Open Malcure Scanner in your Admin Dashboard. Run a scan to check files, database, users, and more. Review — Every finding comes with an exact location: file path, line number, or database record. Decide what to repair, delete, or keep. Clean & Recover — Shows every infection so you can clean it yourself. Advanced Edition adds repair tools, file operations, whitelisting, and WP-CLI automation. Monitor — Set up scheduled scans. Get email alerts the moment a threat is found. Is It Free? We believe in 100% transparency. Free Forever: Professional-grade Detection (Knowledge). You see every infected file and database row (exact file path & line number), so you can clean it yourself for free. Free Forever: Real-time Threat Intelligence, Scheduled Scans, Weekly Security Pulse email, and Firewall & Hardening. Pro Upgrade: File Repairs, Deletions, Whitelisting, Advanced Scan Filters, WP-CLI Automation, Auto-Definition Updates, Bulk Client-Servicing Features & Premium Support (Expertise). You are never forced to pay to find a hack. Advanced Edition For when detection is not enough — you need to remediate. 1-Click Repairs: Repair infected files from the official source via Malcure Cloud. Delete Files: Remove infected or irreparable files directly. File & DB Whitelisting: Suppress alarms on specific files and database records. WP-CLI Integration: Full command-line control — async scans, definitions sync, checksum refresh, reporting. Automatic Definition Updates: Hourly cron keeps definitions current without manual intervention. Advanced Scan Filters: Include or exclude directories, custom regex signatures for database and files. File Inspector: Inspect files inline instead of having to go via s/ftp or ssh or file-managers. Copy Scan Results: Copy results to clipboard for client reporting. PHP Config & Diagnostics: View full PHP configuration in diagnostics. Factory Reset: One-click plugin reset. Premium Support: Direct access to our security analysts. Get Malcure Advanced Edition Expert Malware Removal Service In over your head? Our security analysts will clean your site for you — 100% removal guarantee, same-day service, blacklist removal, and 15-day post-cleanup cover. Book Expert Malware Removal Troubleshooting Some files are detected by Malcure Malware Shield as “suspicious”. What gives? Malcure’s DeepScan checks each file for malware. However some files aren’t pure malware but may contain code that is suspicious and could potentially do nasty things. You should carefully review and analyse them to see if they indeed do anything nasty. I can’t get Malcure Malware Shield to work. It hangs / doesn’t complete the scan / breaks for some reason. If you think that the plugin is broken, please report it here. Malcure Malware Shield (or for that matter other plugins) may break on malware affected / broken websites. Malcure Advanced Edition integrates with WP CLI and allows you to complete the scan from WP CLI even when the site is blocked by the webhost or when you are unable to login to the website. My site is infected however Malcure Malware Shield doesn’t detect the infection. Malware keeps evolving. If you come across malware that Malcure Malware Shield is not able to identify, you may please report it here. The scan gets stuck midway. What should I do? In case of such an event, please file a support request with us and we’ll be more than happy to troubleshoot the issue. Please visit this page. I cleaned my site but it got infected again. What should I do? Malware cleanup is a waste of time and effort unless you find the root cause behind the malware infection and monitor for recurrence. How was someone able to infect your website? Have you plugged in that security hole? Please read Why Do Websites Get Hacked. Google Safe Browsing site status (or some other scanner) still shows my site as infected. What should I do? First make sure you purge your site cache. Second, Google (and other scanners) cache the results for some time. You’ll need to force or refresh the scan. You can also file a request with us to get your site off any blacklists. I found a suspicious file, what now? If Malcure flags it, it’s likely malicious. You can inspect the file content using our built-in inspector. If you’re unsure, consider our Expert Malware Removal Service.