BitFire Security – Firewall, Malware Scanner, Bot Blocker, Login Protection vs WP Ghost (Hide My WP Ghost) – Security & Firewall

Your Site Deserves Real Protection You built your WordPress site to grow your business, share your ideas, or connect with your community. You shouldn’t have to become a security expert to keep it safe. BitFire stops hackers, bots, and malware automatically so you can focus on what matters: running your site. And when you have a question, a real person on our US-based support team is here to help, 12 hours a day. How BitFire Keeps You Safe Most security plugins wait until something goes wrong and then try to clean up the mess. BitFire works the other way around: it stops threats before they ever reach your site. Think of it like a lock on your front door versus a camera that records a break-in. BitFire is the lock. Our AI-powered scanner watches your files and traffic in real time, catching new threats that other plugins miss because they are still waiting for someone to write a rule for it. “Traditional firewalls allow everything by default and react to known threats. BitFire flips that: it verifies traffic first and only lets the good stuff through.” Key Features What BitFire Does For You (Free) Stops Bots Automatically Spam bots, scrapers, and scanners get blocked before they waste your server resources or fill your forms with junk. No CAPTCHAs, no puzzles for your visitors. Scans for Malware BitFire checks every file on your site against a database of over 20 million known-good files. If something does not belong, you will know about it. Shows You Who is Visiting See every request to your site in real time: where visitors are from, what browser they are using, and whether they are a real person or a bot. No more guessing. Protects Your Login Page Brute-force attacks, password stuffing, and login bots are stopped cold. Your admin area stays locked down. Tells Real People from Fake Browsers BitFire verifies visitors with 99.7% accuracy, 50 times faster than Cloudflare’s challenge pages. Real visitors never notice. Bots get stopped instantly. Blocks Known Bad Actors Over 300,000 known malicious IPs are blocked before they can even connect to your site. What You Get with BitFire Pro Everything in Free, plus the protections that stop even zero-day attacks on vulnerable plugins and themes: Runtime Protection (RASP) BitFire is the only WordPress security plugin with Runtime Application Self Protection. It watches what your plugins and themes are actually doing and stops anything suspicious: A plugin tries to create a secret admin account? Blocked. Malware tries to edit your PHP files? Blocked. A hacked plugin tries to phone home to a malware server? Blocked. Code tries to redirect your visitors to a scam site? Blocked. BitFire has blocked 100% of critical WordPress zero-day vulnerabilities since 2022, with zero new rules required. A+ Rated Web Application Firewall Independent testing by Cloudbric rated BitFire’s WAF at 94% (A+). See how that compares: BitFire [PRO]: 94% (A+) Ninja Firewall [PRO]: 67% (D) WordFence [PRO]: 41% (D) MalCare [PRO]: 34% (F) iThemes Security: 2% (F) Shield Security [PRO]: 2% (F) SiteGround Security: 2% (F) View the full independent test results at Cloudbric Labs AI-Powered Malware Analysis When the scanner finds something suspicious, BitFire’s AI analyzes it in real time to determine if it is actually malicious or just unusual code. Pro users get results in about 2 minutes. Free users can submit files for batch analysis. Automatic Security Headers BitFire learns which domains your site uses (Google Fonts, your CDN, analytics, etc.) and automatically sets up Content Security Policy headers that earn an A+ rating. This protects your visitors from cross-site scripting and redirect attacks without you having to configure a thing. 30 Days of Traffic History Look back through a full month of traffic data to investigate issues, spot patterns, or just understand how your site is being used. Real Human Support This is what makes BitFire different from the big-name security plugins: when you need help, you talk to a real person. Our US-based support team is available 12 hours a day. No ticket queues that take days. No chatbots. No copy-paste answers. Just experienced people who will make sure your site is secure. Whether you need help with setup, have a question about a block, or want someone to look at a suspicious file, we are here. Pricing Free $0 forever. Bot blocking, malware scanning, login protection, and real-time traffic monitoring. Everything you need to stop the vast majority of automated attacks. Pro – Single Site $60/year. Full RASP protection, A+ rated WAF, AI malware analysis, 30-day logs, and priority human support. Pro – Multi-Site Volume Pricing Managing multiple sites? The more you protect, the less you pay: 2-4 sites: $50/site per year 5-9 sites: $45/site per year 10-24 sites: $35/site per year 25-49 sites: $25/site per year 50+ sites: $20/site per year Volume pricing is perfect for freelancers, agencies, and anyone managing WordPress sites for clients. Contact us for volume licensing. How BitFire Compares BitFire vs WordFence WordFence is a solid product with a large team writing custom rules for known vulnerabilities. But there are two things you should know: Free WordFence delays protection by 30 days. When a new vulnerability is found, paying WordFence customers get the fix immediately. Free users wait a full month. If your site is vulnerable, it will almost certainly be attacked before the free patch arrives. WordFence relies on knowing about attacks in advance. With over 10,000 known WordPress vulnerabilities and fewer than 200 signatures, they simply cannot cover everything. BitFire’s RASP does not need to know about an attack in advance. It watches what code is actually doing and stops anything malicious, even brand-new attacks nobody has seen before. Whatever security solution you use – we strongly recommend only using the paid version for all important work. Read the detailed BitFire vs WordFence comparison Why Do Other Plugins Focus So Much on Cleaning Up Malware? Good question. Notice how much other security plugins charge for malware removal and how much of their marketing is about finding infections? A security plugin that does its job well should not need to clean malware off your site very often. If a plugin spends most of its energy on cleanup, that tells you something about how well it prevents attacks in the first place. BitFire focuses on keeping malware off your site so you do not need to pay someone to remove it. Privacy / Monitoring / Data Collection We take your privacy seriously. Here is exactly what BitFire does with data: Traffic inspection. BitFire inspects web traffic to your site to identify threats. Sensitive data like passwords and credit card numbers is automatically replaced with redacted in logs. You can add additional fields to filter in the settings. Error reporting. If BitFire encounters a software error, it can send a report to our development team so we can fix it in the next release. No visitor data is included in these reports. Malware hash checking. BitFire sends tiny numeric fingerprints (64-bit hashes) of your files to our hash server to check them against our database of known-good files. For example, a file might hash to the number 812612388126487. We never see your actual file contents, and your hashes are never stored on our servers. Local data storage. All log data and configuration files are stored locally on your server in a hidden, randomly-named directory under wp-content/uploads/. This directory is protected by an .htaccess file and is not accessible from the web. =trunk/views/hashes_v2.html= Changelog == 5.1.5 Bots impersonating crawlers (bing, meta, google, etc) are not blocked for simple unrestricted GET requests Added daily fetch data for supplemental crawler dns / cidr lists Improved server IP address detection for allowing local server loop back calls Added plugin inventory hiding to malware detection capabilities Malware detections for plugins missing valid headers / plugin scripts Malware detections for plugins with random identifiers in them Improved logging of xmlrpc requests – now records list of method names – not raw xml Added ability to allow users to delete / restore entire plugins if they are only malware (not official plugins with strong malware signals) Binary files are excluded from malware diffs now Reduced false positives for SQL injection Bot Control panel links to dashboard filter user agents better AI verdict results are now stored for future reference Fix deprecation warning for http response headers on PHP 8.5 Removed dependency on filter_var extension Added expert opinion check allowing admins to request a review of potential malware samples by BitFire staff 5.1.4 Fixed an issue that could allow some admin-ajax requests to recieve a browser challenge for the logged in admin on first install Added additional filtering to cover unknown authorization values, provider keys, and hexadecimal tokens in log storage Added daily updated list of allowed network ranges for core web and AI crawers Improved chaching of DNS lookups for core web bots Added additional bot telemetry gating for bitfire core enable flag 5.1.3 fixed an issue with bot triage recomendations that could generate fatal errors on some host in a background task 5.1.1 Added traffic percent blocking for large sites to sample blocking behavior before fully commiting Increased free AI usage credits from 10 to 12 Improved bot/browser verification compatibility with ModSecurity Added buttons for allowing traffic on the dashboard Fixed an issue that was blocking obviously malicious bots even when bot whitelist setting was not enabled Added reasonable limit for max malware file size to prevent resource exchaustion on servers with very large files Expanded bot source and threat intel data Older versions could label some woocommerce user-agents that were completely random as Improved detection of when to load wordpress vs when to inspect early Bots can be configured directly from the dahboard by clicking on their link to the bot control page False positives can now have execptions added on the dashboard with a single button click AI Malware change for OpenAI compliance – previous versions will no longer support AI analysis Threat hunter content scanner reduced false positiveso Basic harending (size limits, shape constraints) for inputs, moved some requests to POST Expanded learning to support sites that accept POSTs from off site for validated web browsers Bot triage moves from hourly to every 3 hours Expanded runtime protection to ensure environemnt loaded successfull before registering wordpress hooks Improved malware input tainting tracing which detects additional potential malware, reduced false positives Added an exclude list of allowed files in the root for the malware scanner Bots who have been repeat visitors with an AI recomendation different different than current mode now show up on to_review tab 5.1.0 Reduced false positvies for malware scan Improved AI scan results with greatly reduced false positives Implemented quarantine restore for deleted malware files in case of site breakage with Add quarantine restore in case core files are deleted from malware cleanup using new mu-plugin error handler bitfire.php Improved RASP compatibility with fewer exceptions UI improvements Add quick links to wafer firewall scan and securityheaders.com tests Hardening for bot domain verification Improved UI browser and bot icons Support auto-updating BitFire PRO plugin Improved fallbacks for caching Minor refactoring to improve AI analysis of codebase Added special handling for servers with low available memory (< 10MB) Added support for servers that have getmypid() disabled 5.0.9 Add security posture to settings page Improved bot identification Improved loading order decreases block time Multi-Site support! Few bug fixes Fixed an issue with support for PHP 7.4 Links to header and WAF 3rd party verification checks on settings page Display hardening for malformed malware Fix for header signatures on 32bit systems 5.0.0 New AI-powered malware analysis for suspicious files Reduced Pro pricing to $60/year with volume discounts Improved malware scanner performance and accuracy Updated bot and browser fingerprint databases Improved dashboard and settings UI 4.8.3 Fix an issue that could reset the configuration on upgrade 4.8.2 Improvements to the malware scanning UI Fixes for downloading non-PHP files Additional guards to handle corner cases 4.8.0 Improved malware detection and reduced false positives Added 3 new file hash servers in US, DE, and KR Added support for checking for backups and files that could contain sensitive data New daily/weekly status emails Added daily malware scan scheduling Various stability and configuration improvements 4.7.4 Improved dashboard messaging for IP and user-agent blocking Fixed toggle behavior on the exceptions page Fixed deprecation warnings Fixed an issue that could prevent uploading plugins when bot blocking was enabled 4.7.3 Initial WP-CLI support: review logs, check metrics, manage blocks Configuration file reliability improvements PHP 8.3 compatibility fix 4.7.2 Improved traffic monitoring and logging Added “Fake Browser” detection badges Added DoS protection for rate-limited IPs New traffic filter keywords: BLOCKED, RESTRICTED, ADMIN, LOGINS, and more Added email notifications for server health Performance improvements across the board 4.7.0 Added AI verification framework for block accuracy Reduced server communication timeout for faster responses Additional blocking class types for exclusions PHP 8.4 compatibility Updated Google, Bing, and Cloudflare IP lists 4.6.1 Improved dashboard log searching Fixed a rare memory issue with log writing 4.6 Moved configuration and log storage to a more secure location Added .htaccess protection for data directories Resolved several minor PHP warnings 4.5 Fixed filtering on blocked requests Fixed handling of malformed file uploads Added additional browser support 4.4.9 Major quality and performance improvements Daily report emails Complete rewrite of caching and statistics Full support for cached websites (Cloudflare, etc.) Log up to 30 days and 2 million requests per month 4.0.1 Major overhaul of browser and bot detection Added 180+ browsers and 300+ browser icons Switched to high-performance binary log format Added commercial IP reputation database with 300K+ abusive IPs Simplified user interface

WP Ghost (formerly known as Hide My WP Ghost) is a professional-grade, comprehensive hack-prevention security solution for WordPress. Built for speed and engineered for maximum defense, WP Ghost provides a multi-layered security architecture designed to block hacker bots, neutralize automated scanners, and stop the hack before the reconnaissance even begins. While traditional security tools focus on Detection (scanning for malware after a breach) or Signature-Filtering (blocking known exploits), WP Ghost focuses on Architecture. By implementing Paths Security and Site Hardening, we remove the digital footprints that make your site a target for automated botnets, providing a proactive foundation that secures your site before it can even be identified as a target. WP Ghost Global Stats: 10 Million+ Monthly Brute-Force Attempts Blocked 100 Million+ Monthly Security Threats Prevented Official websites: WP Ghost (wpghost.com) Hide My WP Ghost (hidemywpghost.com) Stop Attacks with Paths Security & Architectural Hardening Most WordPress attacks are automated. Bots scan millions of sites per hour looking for default paths like /wp-admin or /wp-login.php to confirm a site is running WordPress. Once confirmed, they launch targeted exploits against known plugin or theme vulnerabilities. WP Ghost breaks this cycle. By changing and securing common paths, you reduce your attack surface by up to 90%. This isn’t “obscurity”, it’s Site Hardening. We re-engineer the visible structure of your site so it is no longer a low-hanging fruit for global botnets. NEW: AI Security Explanations — Your Report, Explained for Your Website Every security plugin hands you a list of red warnings. Almost none of them tell you what those warnings mean for your website. WP Ghost now does. One click sends your findings for analysis against the way your site is actually configured — your server type, whether your rewrite rules are live, whether your config file is writable, which security mode you run — and returns a security report written for you, not for WordPress in general. Requires a WP Ghost subscription, which includes a monthly allowance of AI checks. Everything else on the Security Check page — the scan, the score, the prioritised list, the severity bands and every task detail — is free and works on its own. What you get back: A plain-language summary of your whole website. One paragraph that finally answers “so, am I actually secure?” A headline you can understand. The technical task name is replaced with what is genuinely at stake. One clear action per finding. Not a description of the problem — an instruction telling you what to do. A security explanation on demand. Open Details on any finding and you get the reasoning: why it matters on your server, what an attacker would do with it, and why it was ranked where it was. This is the part that teaches you WordPress security instead of just flagging it. Priority based on real exposure. Findings are re-ranked using your actual configuration, so the item at the top is the one that genuinely puts you at risk — not the one that scores highest in a generic table. Built with limits you can check. Only your findings and a small description of your setup are ever sent — no page content, no user data, no credentials. Your security list, your score, the severity bands and every task detail are generated locally and keep working whether the AI is available or not. Read more about AI Security Explanations on wpghost.com NEW: Ghost Doctor — Finds and Repairs a Broken Site by Itself Changing your WordPress paths depends on your server honouring the new rules. When it doesn’t — Nginx never reads .htaccess, Apache ignores it without AllowOverride, a host locks the config file — your site can break, and nothing tells you why. Ghost Doctor diagnoses it and repairs what a plugin is allowed to repair. It checks your homepage, theme files, editor requests and REST API the way a visitor sees them, then works through repairs from the safest to the most invasive. Every repair is tested immediately and undone automatically if it did not help, so a run never leaves a setting changed for nothing. Anything that genuinely needs a server change is named plainly, with a guide, instead of leaving you guessing. Read the Ghost Doctor troubleshooting guides Key Protections Included WP Ghost is packed with advanced defensive mechanisms to protect your site against: Brute Force Attacks: Blocks automated password guessing at the source. SQL Injection & XSS: Neutralizes malicious query strings and script injections. Zero-Day Exploits: Secures paths for plugins before patches are even released. XML-RPC & REST API Attacks: Shuts down common remote-access entry points. Bot Reconnaissance: Prevents “fingerprinting” that hackers use to map your site. Spam & Scrapers: Filters malicious traffic, saving bandwidth and server load. Over 115 Free Security Features Included We believe professional security should be accessible to everyone. The free version of WP Ghost includes a massive suite of tools to harden your WordPress architecture. 1. Change and Secure Paths (Paths Security) Change wp-admin & wp-login.php: Move your login to a unique URL and show a 404 error to intruders. Change Lost Password & Register URLs: Secure all authentication entry points. Change wp-content & wp-includes: Secure your core system folders from direct access. Anonymize Plugins & Themes: Change visible plugin/theme paths so hackers can’t identify your software version. Secure admin-ajax.php & REST API: Change the /wp-json path to prevent data scraping. Security Presets: One-click activation with three preset levels — from minimal to full protection with Firewall, Brute Force, Logs, and 2FA. Frontend Test: Verify your site loads correctly after changing paths before confirming settings. Custom Redirects: Set unique login/logout redirects based on user roles. Login Page Designer: Customize your secured login page with your logo, colors, background, and 10 color schemes. 2. Next-Gen Firewall & Authentication 8G & 7G Firewall Filters: High-speed, lightweight server-edge filtering to block bad bots. Passkey Authentication (Passwordless 2FA): Use Face ID, Touch ID, or Windows Hello for un-phishable, device-based logins. Standard 2FA (Code & Email): Add an extra verification layer to all user accounts. Security Headers: Automatically implement CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, and more. IP & User Agent Blocking: Manually blacklist suspicious traffic or referrers. Security Threats Log: Track blocked attacks and malicious requests directly in your dashboard (limited view). User Events Log: Monitor login activity, role changes, and user actions (limited view). GEO Threats Map: Visualize where attacks originate with an interactive world map showing the top 5 threat countries. Security Optimization Score: Real-time 0-100 score showing exactly how hardened your site is, with actionable recommendations. Temporary Logins: Create time-limited access links for developers and clients without sharing passwords. 3. Deep Hiding & Footprint Removal Scrub Meta Tags: Remove WordPress version numbers and generator tags. Clean HTML Comments: Strip identifiable comments that reveal your tech stack. Hide Admin Toolbar: Remove the toolbar for specific roles to hide backend indicators. Disable Emoticons & RSD: Remove unnecessary header links that bloat code and reveal info. 4. Advanced Disable Options Disable XML-RPC: Shut down the most common vector for DDoS and brute force. Disable REST API Access: Restrict API access to authenticated users only. Frontend Lockdown: Disable right-click, “View Source,” and text selection to prevent manual reconnaissance. Disable Directory Browsing: Ensure your server folders are never visible to the public. 5. Brute Force Protection Integrated ReCaptcha: Supports Google V2, V3, Enterprise, and Math ReCaptcha. Targeted Protection: Enable brute force defense on Login, Signup, and WooCommerce pages. Custom Throttling: Define your own lockout times and attempt limits. 6. Extra Tools & Integrations Magic Links: Log in securely without a password via a one-time email link. Text & URL Mapping: Change any class name or URL in your source code dynamically. CDN & Cache Support: Works perfectly with WP Rocket, Cloudflare, and Litespeed. Ghost Doctor: Diagnoses why your paths stopped working and repairs what it can, testing every repair and undoing anything that did not help. Prioritized Security Check: Failing paths and failed hardening tasks arrive as one list, worst first, with bands described in time — “worth fixing this week” — instead of separate tables to reconcile. AI Security Explanations: Get every finding explained for your website and ranked by real exposure. Requires a connected WP Ghost account with an active subscription; a monthly allowance applies. Learn more. Premium Hack-Prevention Features For agencies and high-traffic sites, WP Ghost Premium adds advanced features focused on Security Intelligence, Automated Response, and Copyright Protection. AI Security Explanations: Your findings explained for your own website and re-ranked by what actually exposes you, with a monthly allowance of AI checks included in your subscription. Read more. Ghost Mode: Maximum security preset, changes all paths, hides all file extensions, and enables all hiding options in one click. IP Block Automation: Automatically block IP addresses that trigger repeated security threats. AI Copyright Protection: Block 30+ AI training crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and others) at the firewall level. List auto-updated with each release. Does not affect Google, Bing, or regular search visibility. Full Security Threats Log: Unlimited entries with filters by threat type, status, country, and time range, full-text search, pagination, and CSV export. Full User Events Log: Unlimited entries with filters, search, pagination, and CSV export. Cloud Event Storage: 30-day cloud retention for audits and incident reports. Real-time Email Alerts: Get notified instantly of brute-force attempts or suspicious activity. Geo-Security (Country Blocking): Block entire countries or specific paths by country. Advanced File Hardening: Hide file extensions (PHP, CSS, JS, JSON), secure wp-config.php, php.ini, and debug.log. Database & Server Hardening: Fix file permissions, change database prefix, regenerate SALT keys. Priority Support: Direct access to our security experts and founder-led assistance. Hide My WP Premium Feature Technical Compatibility WP Ghost is engineered for the modern WordPress ecosystem: Hosting Support: Optimized for WP Engine, Inmotion Hosting, Hostgator Hosting, Godaddy Hosting, Host1plus, Payperhost, Fastcomet, Dreamhost, Bitnami Apache, Bitnami Nginx, Google Cloud Hosting, Amazon AWS Lightsail, Litespeed Hosting, Flywheels Hosting, Kinsta Hosting, Ploi.io, CloudPanel, RunCloud, Rocket Domain, Yunohost. Server Support: Fully compatible with Nginx, Apache, LiteSpeed, and IIS. Plugin Support: Seamless integration with Woocommerce, WPML, WPMUDEV, W3 Total Cache, Gravity, WP Super Cache, WP Fastest Cache, Hummingbird Cache, Cachify Cache, Litespeed Cache, SiteGround Optimizer, Nitropack, Cache Enabler, CDN Enabler, WOT Cache, Autoptimize, Jetpack by WordPress, Contact Form 7, bbPress, Manage WP, All In One SEO, Rank Math, Yoast SEO, Squirrly SEO, WP-Rocket, Minify HTML, Solid Security, Sucuri Security, Really Simple SSL, WordFence Security, WP Cerber Security, BBQ Firewall, Anti-Malware Security, Back-Up WordPress, Elementor Page Builder, Divi Builder, Weglot Translate, AddToAny Share Btn, Limit Login Attempts Reloaded, Loginizer, Shield Security, Asset CleanUp, WP Hide & Security Enhancer, and more. Stop the hack before it starts. Join over 100,000 users who trust WP Ghost to secure their digital presence.