Checkout Shield for WooCommerce – Stop Fake Orders, Spam Bots & Card Testing vs Crovly – Proof of Work Captcha & Spam Protection

Checkout Shield blocks the scripted checkout submissions that CAPTCHA never sees. Card testing bots don’t fill out your checkout form. They hit your store’s checkout API directly, completely skipping any reCAPTCHA or hCaptcha you’ve set up. That’s why CAPTCHA alone doesn’t stop them. Your site signs a proof into the checkout page it serves. A submission that carries that proof loaded the page; one that doesn’t, didn’t. Submissions with no valid proof are stopped before WooCommerce processes the order. What this stops, and what it does not Being straight about this is more useful than a bigger promise. It stops anything that posts to your checkout without loading the checkout page first: curl scripts, direct Store API calls, replayed form posts, and the card testing runs that work this way. This is the large majority of automated checkout abuse, and it is the part CAPTCHA misses. It does not stop a bot that drives a real browser. Something that genuinely loads your checkout page receives a genuine proof, because that is exactly what the proof records. Once loaded, that proof stays valid for the life of the shopping session, so a script can reuse it. No proof of this kind can tell the second submission from the first, since the thing being proven is identical. For that tier you want a bot mitigation service in front of the site (Cloudflare Bot Fight Mode, Sucuri) alongside this plugin. What this plugin can do is show you when it is happening: the dashboard reports payments that failed repeatedly from a single checkout visit, which is what working through stolen card numbers looks like. In Pro it can also act on it. Once a visit crosses a failure limit you set, the source IP is banned for a while so it can’t just start a fresh visit and keep going, and the ban lifts itself, so a bad guess never becomes a permanent lock-out. A determined attacker can still rotate IPs, which is why the service in front of the site stays the front line, but for the common case this turns the pattern off at the source. Why Store Owners Choose This Plugin Catches what CAPTCHA misses: blocks bots hitting your checkout API directly, without asking shoppers to prove anything Works with any caching: LiteSpeed, Cloudflare, WP Rocket and W3TC, with no conflicts Nothing to configure: no rules to write and no thresholds to tune Never blocks your customers by mistake: it only starts once it has seen a real checkout on your store work, and if your theme ever stops carrying the proof it detects that, keeps letting real shoppers through, and tells you what to fix No external services: everything runs on your server, no subscriptions Adds milliseconds: the check is local, with no third-party call to wait on Features (Free) Automatic bot blocking: no rules to configure; it arms itself once it has seen one checkout on your store work 4 protection levels: Learning, Permissive, Balanced and Strict, so you choose how aggressive you want to be One place for everything: a dedicated Checkout Shield screen with a live “what’s protected right now” overview, plus your settings and logs Dashboard overview: see blocked vs verified orders at a glance with a 7-day chart Order status tracking: know which orders were flagged, passed, or blocked IP whitelist: let trusted addresses through, supports CIDR notation API key authentication: for headless and custom checkout setups Works with all checkout types: classic, block-based, and all payment gateways HPOS compatible: works with High-Performance Order Storage WooCommerce logging: full integration with WooCommerce Status logs Pro Features Pro is about two things: stopping more, and letting you see it happen. Live attack timeline: watch scripted attempts get stopped as they arrive, with the surface, reason, masked email, and IP for each one Test your protection: one button fires the real card-testing request at your own store and shows you it hit a wall, so you never have to wonder whether it’s working Auto-ban repeat offenders: when one visit keeps failing payment past a limit you set, its IP is blocked for a while and then released on its own, so it can’t just start over Registration protection: the same no-CAPTCHA proof on your sign-up forms, plus throwaway-email blocking and per-IP rate limiting, to stop the fake accounts that come before fraud Throwaway email blocking: reject checkouts using a known disposable inbox, with a domain list the plugin keeps up to date for you 3-level logging control: turn logging off, log blocked attempts only, or log everything Recent blocks feed: the last 50 blocked attempts with email, payment method, and reason Automatic CDN/proxy detection: identifies real visitor IPs behind Cloudflare, Sucuri, or Akamai Stronger permissive mode: tighter bot detection with referrer and user-agent checks Checkout details in logs: see which email and payment method bots tried to use Customer blocklist: block repeat offenders by email, name, address, phone, IP, or postal code, all managed from the Checkout Shield screen One-click order blocking: block a customer directly from any order screen Learn more about Pro features

Crovly is a privacy-first captcha service powered by Proof of Work. Unlike traditional captchas that rely on image puzzles (easily solved by AI) or invasive tracking, Crovly makes the visitor’s browser do computational work to prove it’s not a bot. How it works: Your visitor’s browser solves a small cryptographic puzzle (Proof of Work) Browser fingerprint and environment signals are collected (as a hash — no personal data stored) Behavioral analysis detects automated patterns (mouse, keyboard, scroll) A composite score determines if the visitor is human Key features: Privacy-friendly — No cookies, no cross-site tracking No image puzzles — Invisible to legitimate users Resistant to AI vision attacks — Proof of Work cannot be solved by image recognition IP binding — Tokens are bound to the solver’s IP address Adaptive difficulty — Suspicious visitors receive harder challenges 22+ integrations — Works with major WordPress form plugins Lightweight — Widget is under 25KB gzipped, zero dependencies, 42 languages Supported integrations: WordPress login, registration, lost password, comments WooCommerce (checkout, login, register, lost password, pay for order) Contact Form 7 WPForms Gravity Forms Elementor Pro Forms Ninja Forms Fluent Forms Formidable Forms Forminator Jetpack Contact Form Divi (contact form, login) BuddyPress (registration, activity) bbPress (topics, replies) Ultimate Member (login, register, password reset) MemberPress (checkout, login) Paid Memberships Pro Easy Digital Downloads Mailchimp for WordPress GiveWP wpDiscuz wpForo WordPress Multisite signup Shortcode & PHP support: Use [crovly] shortcode in any page or post, or call crovly_render() and crovly_verify() in your theme templates. External services This plugin relies on the Crovly captcha service to function. It connects to two external endpoints: 1. Crovly Widget CDN (get.crovly.com) The plugin loads the JavaScript widget from https://get.crovly.com/widget.js on any page that contains a protected form. The widget runs Proof of Work in the visitor’s browser and collects a hashed browser fingerprint. When: Loaded on frontend pages that display a protected form (login, register, comment, checkout, etc.) What is sent: Standard HTTP request headers (IP address, user agent). No personal data. Terms of Service: https://crovly.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://crovly.com/privacy 2. Crovly Verification API (api.crovly.com) When a visitor submits a protected form, the plugin sends the generated captcha token to https://api.crovly.com/verify-token for server-side verification. When: On form submission of any form protected by Crovly. What is sent: The captcha token (opaque string), the visitor’s IP address (for IP binding), and your Secret Key (for authentication). What is received: A success/failure response indicating whether the token is valid. Terms of Service: https://crovly.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://crovly.com/privacy Both services are operated by Crovly. No data is shared with third parties. The plugin does not set cookies or track visitors across sites.