BotBlocker Security – Complete security platform vs Contact Camo

BotBlocker Security is a complete security platform that blocks 99% of attacks before WordPress loads. Firewall, bot detection, rate limiting, CAPTCHA, 2FA, analytics, notifications, tools – one plugin replaces your entire security stack: no need for separate firewall, CAPTCHA, 2FA, and anti-spam plugins. No bloat, no monthly fees for core protection. If your site is hit by login brute force, spam comments, fake Googlebots, content scrapers, or XML-RPC floods, you are not alone: bots generate over 47% of all web traffic. Most security plugins react after WordPress boots, wasting CPU and memory on every bad request. BotBlocker stops them at the door – then gives you the analytics, alerts, and tools to understand exactly what it blocked and why. Because BotBlocker intercepts traffic before themes and plugins run, it also shields vulnerabilities in your entire plugin and theme stack. Zero-days in contact form plugins, unpatched slider code, outdated e-commerce extensions – attackers never reach the vulnerable code. BotBlocker is your first and last line of defense, every day. Why site owners switch to BotBlocker Faster than the competition. Runs on early init through three interception layers, before themes and plugins load. Server load drops during attacks instead of spiking. Zero database queries for returning visitors – 11 pre-generated PHP files with SHA-256 integrity, loaded via native include. One plugin, full security stack. Firewall, CAPTCHA, 2FA, anti-spam, rate limiting, bot detection – BotBlocker covers virtually every security need a WordPress site has. Most users uninstall 2-3 separate plugins after switching. PRO adds malware scanning, security headers, speed optimization, and behavioral analysis – still one plugin. Smarter bot detection. 2,899 User-Agent signatures – largest blacklist among WordPress plugins – plus 2,800+ additional bot signatures. 13 header checks including AdBlock detection, incognito mode detection, Canvas/WebGL fingerprinting, and device API verification. Anti-detect scoring with 9 weighted signals catches headless Chrome, Puppeteer, Selenium, and PhantomJS even when they spoof user-agent strings. Smarter CAPTCHA. 9 modes including Silent Auto-Verify – zero clicks for humans, hard wall for bots. Proprietary CAPTCHAs defeat AI-based solvers that crack reCAPTCHA for $2-3 per 1,000. Honest free version. Full firewall, all 9 CAPTCHA modes, full 2FA, full logging, full Multisite, Redis/Memcached, shortcodes, command palette, Telegram alerts, visual analytics, 15 diagnostic tools. No nag screens, no crippled features. Privacy-first. No visitor data leaves your server. GDPR and CCPA compliant out of the box. Works with everything. Cloudflare, WP Rocket, LiteSpeed, WooCommerce, Elementor, multisite, IPv6, PHP 7.4 to 8.5. 🛡️ Core Firewall (Free) Three-Layer Architecture – intercepts traffic at wp-config.php (before WordPress), MU-plugin phase, and main shield. The first layer blocks known threats before WordPress, plugins, or themes even load – saving 30-100ms and 5-20MB RAM per blocked request. This also means BotBlocker shields you from vulnerabilities in other plugins and themes: attackers exploiting a zero-day in a contact form or slider plugin never reach the vulnerable code. Web Application Firewall (WAF) with real-time rule updates via the BotBlocker Threat Defense Feed 2,899 User-Agent signatures – largest blacklist among WordPress plugins – covering Scrapy, Selenium, Puppeteer, PhantomJS, curl, wget, Python, Java, Perl, and SQL injection tools. Plus 2,800+ additional bot signatures. Brute force protection with progressive lockouts – 5 attempts per 15 minutes, escalating bans for repeat offenders Rate Limiting – sliding window velocity tracking per IP. 30 requests/minute triggers CAPTCHA challenge; 50 requests/minute blocks IP for 10 minutes. Subnet-level aggregation catches distributed attacks across /24 IPv4 or /64 IPv6 ranges. Floor protection prevents false positives at low thresholds. Anti-spam for comments, registration, contact forms – spammers blocked before they connect XML-RPC and REST API locked down by default with allowlist for trusted services HTTP method-level hardening – CONNECT and TRACE blocked (XST attack prevention). OPTIONS handled for CORS preflight. Explicit method allowlist. Fake crawler detection via FCrDNS (dual-direction DNS verification), ASN tokens, and published IP ranges – 95% effective, impossible to spoof without controlling the provider’s DNS zone. Multi-resolver DNS fallback. LLM / AI crawler management – allow or block GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Bytespider via CIDR-verified IP ranges. 1,435 LLM source ranges synced from cloud. Trusted crawlers verified, impersonators blocked. Country, ASN, IP range, User-Agent, Referer blocking rules with instant enforcement. ASN database: 3.6M verified source records. Geo-blocking with visual country selector and import/export. Cloudflare-aware real-IP resolution and origin bypass protection TLS fingerprinting (JA3/JA4) – detects bots by TLS handshake signature, cross-validates against User-Agent. 189 JA3/JA4 signatures. Opt-in, requires server module. See docs/TLS-FINGERPRINTING.md RKN (Roskomnadzor) blocking – 852 CIDR ranges, cloud-synced, auto-updated with self-healing tamper recovery Full IPv6 support – separate tables and logic for IPv4 and IPv6, every feature works with both Live traffic monitor with attack map, country, ASN, device, browser, and exact block reason for every request Built-in caching via Redis and Memcached – free, auto-disable on connection failure 🔍 Bot Detection & Anti-Detect (Free) 13 HTTP header checks run on every visitor, catching bots that other plugins miss: Empty User-Agent / UA Anomalies / Empty Accept-Language PTR/DNS Mismatch – forward/reverse DNS mismatch, impossible to fake Geo vs Language Mismatch – visitor claiming one language from a different country Incognito/Private Mode detection AdBlock/uBlock detection in visitor’s browser Canvas & WebGL Fingerprinting – JS consistency verification WhatsApp Preview / OPTIONS Preflight – legitimate traffic whitelisted Anti-Detect Challenge Page activates when header checks raise suspicion – silent browser fingerprinting before any CAPTCHA appears: 9 weighted detection signals: navigator mismatch (×2), fake plugins (×3), font rendering mismatch (×2), WebGL mismatch (×2), Chromium-specific properties (×3), JS execution jitter, touch event mismatch (×2), language mismatch (×3), incognito detection (×2) Critical signal combinations trigger immediate block – e.g. navigator mismatch + fake plugins together Cookie capability test + sessionStorage retry counter HMAC-signed responses resist DDoS provider interference Circuit Breaker: 3 failures → 30-second cooldown → auto-retry CAPTCHA appears only if auto-verification fails – real users rarely see it 🎯 CAPTCHA System – All 9 Modes Free # Mode User Experience Best For 8 Silent Auto-Verify (Recommended) Zero clicks. JS fingerprint check passes silently. Default. Maximum UX. 0 Simple Button Single “I am not a robot” button Minimal friction 1 Color Buttons Click the matching color button Visual verification 2 Image CAPTCHA Click the image matching the category. 5 packs: Eagle, Horse, Raccoon, Dog, Cat Visual recognition 3 reCAPTCHA v2 + Button Google checkbox + BotBlocker button Google ecosystem users 4 reCAPTCHA v2 Standard Google reCAPTCHA Google ecosystem only 5 Dynamic Shapes 60fps Canvas with moving geometric figures. 5 shapes × 5 colors = 25 combinations. Maximum anti-AI protection 6 Dynamic Digits Animated math equation Math verification 7 Hold Button Hold and release in the green zone Physical interaction proof Hybrid Mode – combine any internal CAPTCHA with invisible reCAPTCHA v3 for two-layer defense DDoS Resilience Mode – HMAC-signed verification responses prevent forged challenge bypass Session Token Verification – cookie-less fingerprint for restricted hosting (no CAPTCHA loops for VPN/proxy users) CAPTCHA Diagnostics – failure reason codes (token decrypt, transient missing, hash mismatch, mode mismatch) for precise troubleshooting Image Delivery Modes: Inline Base64 (single request, recommended) or Separate Requests (cache-friendly) 🔒 Login Security & 2FA (Free) Two-Factor Authentication compatible with Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, Bitwarden – TOTP standard with 10 backup codes 9 CAPTCHA modes on login, registration, lost password, and custom forms Hybrid Mode – combine any internal CAPTCHA with reCAPTCHA v3 for two-layer invisible defense on login Hide login URL (PRO) Configurable lockout durations with escalation for repeat offenders – failed CAPTCHA triggers short ban, repeated failure triggers 24-hour ban 💳 Payment Gateway Bypass (Free) Auto-detects 25+ e-commerce platforms (WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, SureCart, MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, Give, Dokan, CartFlows, FunnelKit, and more) and 150+ payment providers (Stripe, PayPal, Mollie, Adyen, Braintree, Square, Razorpay, Klarna, Paddle, Authorize.Net, 2Checkout, YooKassa, LiqPay, and more). Also auto-detects webhooks from form plugins (Contact Form 7, WPForms, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, Formidable Forms, Forminator, Fluent Forms). Four detection layers – 198 path patterns, 227 query keys, 360 action names, 114 signature headers – ensure zero false positives on payment traffic. Webhooks, IPN callbacks, and payment notifications never get blocked. 📊 Visibility & Control (Free) Visual dashboard with KPI cards – Requests today, Blocked today, Search engines passed, Protection score (0-100%). Hourly bar chart, distribution donut charts (Hosting, Device, Browser, OS) Dashboard social proof card – live WordPress.org rating (1-5 stars with half-star), active installs count, number of ratings, link to WP.org (cached 12 hours) Inline IP rule widget – add IP allow/block rules directly from dashboard via AJAX, no page reload. Bulk IP import with 4 one-click buttons (IPv4/IPv6 whitelist/blacklist). Protection Status Checklist – individual enable/disable toggles for all features with “Enable remaining” bulk action Health Score gauge – 44 parameters across 3 categories, 5 security levels from Critical (<25) to Secure (≥85). Real-time score updates as you change settings. 3 security presets – Light, Strong, Full – one-click configuration. Plus Default for new installs. Setup Wizard – 8 steps: welcome → protection level → compatibility check → exclusions → CAPTCHA → init mode → cache → finish with summary. Under 5 minutes. ⌘K Command Palette – press Ctrl+K / ⌘K on any admin page to instantly search and navigate every setting, tab, and action. 30+ quick-action shortcuts (“Block an IP address”, “Set up 2FA”, “Run malware scan”, “Clear visitor cookies”). Near-zero-click configuration. Interactive analytics – 8 KPI metrics, donut charts (Hosting, Device, Browser, OS), traffic line chart with time range, world map with country-level visualization, top IPs and top countries ranking tables 55 diagnostic event codes across 12 log categories – exact block reason for every single decision. 12 categories independently toggleable. Detailed event log with IP, country, ASN, User-Agent, browser type, OS type, device type, and exact block reason 17 interface languages – English, Deutsch, Español, Français, Polski, Русский, Українська, العربية, עברית, Italiano, 日本語, 한국어, Nederlands, Português, Svenska, Türkçe, 中文 + POT template Admin page header bar – “Blocked today: X · Total: Y” on every admin page without opening dashboard Admin bar WordPress toolbar node – protection status + Dashboard + Settings links Configurable retention with timezone and DST awareness. Daily Summary with incremental aggregation for fast multi-day analytics. X-Robots-Tag control – user-configurable SEO directives (noindex, nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet, noimageindex, notranslate, unavailable_after) on blocked/challenge pages – prevents search engines from indexing security barriers Clean uninstall – drops all 17 tables, removes 40+ options, clears 22+ transients, removes 12 cron hooks, deletes MU-plugin files and uploads/botblocker/ directory. Uninstall feedback dialog collects departure reason. Zero leftover data. 📬 Notifications & Alerts (Free) Email reports – daily / twice-weekly / monthly security summaries with key metrics. Critical server load warnings and Cloud API expiry alerts. Telegram Bot integration (add-on) – weekly security summaries via @BotFather-connected bot: total requests, allowed, blocked, suspicious, search bots, fake bots, timezone, protection mode, security score, block rate. Connection test button for setup verification. Configured in Add-ons → Telegram Notifications. Admin Dashboard Alerts (8 types) – cloud connection lost, missing runtime files, cloud API expired, cloud API hits exhausted, ASN database update failed, addon update failed, addon incompatible, cache plugin incompatibility 🧩 Shortcodes & Developer Tools (Free) 20 shortcodes for frontend dashboards, client portals, and status pages: Shortcode What It Displays [bbcs_counters_grid] Hits + blocked + search engine counters [bbcs_blocked_today] / [bbcs_blocked_total] Block counters [bbcs_health_gauge] Visual health score gauge chart [botblocker_generateSiteHealthList] Security recommendations checklist [bbcs_health_full] Full health assessment grid [bbcs_top_ips] / [bbcs_top_countries] Top IPs and countries (configurable count + days) [bbcs_top_devices] / [bbcs_top_browsers] Top devices and browsers [bbcs_latest_hits] Latest visitor hits table [botblocker_rules_stats] IPv4/IPv6 rules + paths + bots statistics [bbcs_database_update] / [bbcs_database_total] Cloud IP database stats [bbcs_system_status] Server info: OS, PHP, DB, WP versions [bbcs_botblocker_news] BotBlocker news feed [bbcs_lang_options] Language selector dropdown [bbcs_plugins_themes] Installed plugins and themes list [bbcs_cron_tasks] Scheduled cron tasks widget [bbcs_recommendations] Security improvement recommendations WP Connectors (WordPress 6.7+) – BotBlocker registers as a native WordPress Connector on the Connections admin page Custom verification endpoint (bbcs-verify) – decoupled from WordPress permalink structure WordPress Admin → Tools → Site Health → Info integration Plugin update changelog injection – changelog displayed directly in the WordPress plugin update screen Floating support widget on all admin pages – submit support tickets from dashboard without leaving site 🔧 Tools & Diagnostics (Free) 15 maintenance and diagnostic actions built into the admin panel: Tool Purpose Export Data & Settings Full JSON backup of settings, rules, IP lists, configuration Import Data & Settings Restore from JSON backup Reinstall Database Factory-reset all BotBlocker tables Repair & Optimize DB WordPress database repair and optimization Clear All Visitor Data Purge hits, counters, and statistics Clear Transients Remove expired WordPress transients Update ASN Database Download latest 3.6M-record ASN geolocation database Update RU-Gov List Download latest 852-range RKN CIDR blocklist Sync LLM Providers Refresh 1,435 AI crawler IP ranges from cloud Clear Visitor Cookies Reset all BotBlocker cookies – forces re-verification Reset URL Rewrite Rules Fix 404 errors after permalink changes Clear Object Cache Flush WordPress internal + Redis/Memcached caches Site Health Open WordPress Site Health diagnostic Clear Debug Log / Download Debug Log Purge or download wp-content/debug.log for support 🚀 PRO Adds (Premium / Pro / Ultimate) Cloud Threat Intelligence – 5M+ attack IPs cross-checked against global databases. Zero-day behavioral and heuristic detection catches unknown attack patterns before signatures exist. VPN, Tor, proxy, ASN, and hosting reputation checks. Early Init Mode – filtering before WordPress Core loads. Boot code in wp-config.php blocks threats at the earliest possible layer. Up to 30-100ms and 5-20MB RAM saved per blocked request. Multisite-aware, auto-disables if Cloud API inactive. Self-healing runtime files. Hide Login URL – custom admin URL slug. Four behaviors when default URL is accessed: 403 message, 404 page, …

Contact Camo protects email addresses from scrapers and bots — now with a native Gutenberg block so you can build beautiful, protected contact experiences without touching a single line of code. What Is It? Contact Camo is a plugin for WordPress developed by Plan Left that effectively hides or obfuscates email addresses from scammers, web scrapers and internet bots to help minimize spam and other nefarious, automated actors. In addition to protecting email addresses, Contact Camo provides rich, visual control over how those protected email addresses are displayed and interacted with by your visitors — all from inside the WordPress block editor. Now with a Native Gutenberg Block! Contact Camo now feels right at home in the WordPress block editor. Drag it in, configure it visually, and see a live preview of exactly what your visitors will see — no shortcodes, no guesswork. Everything is point-and-click: 🎨 Pick an icon — Browse and search hundreds of WordPress icons right inside the sidebar. Choose your size from XS to XL, or dial in an exact pixel size. 🖌️ Choose a color — Set the text and icon color using your theme’s color palette or a custom color picker. It just works. 🔘 Link or button? — Toggle between a standard link and a styled button in one click. Your theme’s button styles apply automatically. 📋 Inline or popup form? — Show a sleek embedded contact form or a modal popup — your choice, configured visually. 📐 Control the layout — Adjust container padding and form width to fit perfectly within your design. 👁️ Show what you want — Display the icon and text together, icon only, or text only. You decide. ⚡ Live preview — Every change you make is reflected instantly in the editor canvas. What you see is what you get. All of the above is available through the shortcode too, for those who prefer it. Example Use Cases Educational Organization with large faculty directories Nonprofits who need to be accessible without displaying in-content email addresses Large Organizations who have departmental pages and points of contact but don’t want to maintain multiple contact forms Anyone who doesn’t want to expose email addresses to the scammers, scrapers and bots of the internet. Why Did You Make This Plugin? We work with many non-profits and educational organizations that need to list contact info in directories on their website. Due to the public visibility of these and their large user base, our clients’ web properties are under constant threat from spammers and bots. We wanted to ensure that their user directories were safe from these threats while still being functional to visitors. In other words, we needed to hide a bunch of email addresses from the outside world while still allowing the outside world to contact those users via their email address. When we got to developing this plugin, we knew we had to provide a solution that was as bulletproof as possible while allowing our clients and customers the most amount of control over things as practical. Ultimately, we needed to create a plugin that would: Optionally hide or obfuscate email addresses from scrapers and bots securely and confidently. For our use case, email addresses needed to be obfuscated in the source code, the DOM, and in HTTP requests. We took the email address out of the client-side equation completely by just tucking it safely away in the database in a lookup table instead of providing a workaround that simply disguises the email address. We essentially took the email address to a safe house and sent out its representative to interact with the outside world on its behalf. Nobody gets the email, not no way, not no how, see?!? Provide users with lots of control over the UX of protected email addresses, without the need for cumbersome configuration. The Gutenberg block handles all of that visually, and the shortcode is still there for power users. Be performant in capabilities, lightweight in footprint, and opinionated in scope. The client was very pleased with the end-result and so were we. So, we decided to offer it back to the community. Our development team reviewed and scrutinized the existing plugin, found areas for improvements and further customizations, and baked them right in for everyone to use. Who Is It For? Site administrators and content editors/moderators. Anyone with a WordPress site that would like the peace of mind of knowing that their users’ email addresses are safely hidden from spam bots and other unintended consumers with ill intent. Content creators that don’t want to worry about the complications and time expenditure of dealing with and managing their user base getting spammed from their platform. And especially when any of the above mentioned require some level of control over what’s displayed to their users, who may very well be their customers or clients or patients, etc… It’s for site builders that want protection AND customization without being overwhelmed. With the new Gutenberg block, that means literally anyone editing a page in WordPress — no code required. What Problems Does It Solve? Contact Camo hides or obfuscates email addresses in the source code AND the DOM. Not only this, it ensures the unobfuscated email address is never used in any page or ajax request from its originating context; all handling/processing is done server-side. Once obfuscated, the client-side never sees the original email address again (where obfuscated). The obfuscation (key) is a hash that is stored in a lookup table with the original email address. A few of the limitations we found in some existing (but great) plugins: email address only obfuscated in DOM, but not in source code email address only obfuscated in source code, but not in the DOM integrating with a 3rd-party service that scrapes entire pages and performs a search-and-replace of email addresses with obfuscated versions in the source code email address obfuscation using only html entities replacement few options for controlling output no contact form or fallback options no native block editor support How Does It Work? With the Gutenberg block (recommended): Search for “Contact Camo” in the block inserter, drop it onto your page, enter the email address you want to protect, and configure everything else from the visual sidebar. Done. You’ll see a live preview of the output right there in the editor. With the shortcode: Contact Camo provides a simple shortcode that can be placed anywhere shortcodes are supported. The shortcode’s default output is a clickable link with the obfuscated email address’s generated hash stored in a data attribute. On click, this hash is used to look up the email address and then open the browser’s configured email client with the “To” field pre-populated. The shortcode accepts parameters for overriding the default output — output a button instead of a link, add CSS classes, change the text output, choose an icon, set a color, and more. The shortcode also supports an embedded contact form or an optional modal popup contact form as an alternative to triggering the email client. What is Hide vs Obfuscate? For our plugin, we wanted to give site administrators the option to either completely hide the email address and never let any end content consumer see any piece of the email, or to hide the email until requested and reveal it in context after a specific action is taken. Hiding the email address: The site visitor will never see the email address, and instead only be presented a popup contact form that submits and mails through ajax. This option totally hides the email, and it will never be revealed unless the emailed recipient emails the form submitter back. Obfuscating the email address: The site visitor will not see the email address until the contact button (or link) is clicked. On click, the email address will be revealed and the visitor can copy or mail to that address. What Can I Do With It? We chose to err on the side of simplicity, balanced with enough options to be truly useful. The Gutenberg block makes all of these options accessible without writing a single line of code: Show a link or a button — your theme’s styles applied automatically Add an icon from a library of hundreds, with full size control Set a custom text and icon color using your theme palette or a custom picker Show only the icon, only the text, or both Display an inline contact form or a modal popup form Control padding, form width, and layout Add a custom CSS class or anchor ID for targeting with your own styles or JavaScript All of the above is also available via the shortcode for developers and power users. Basic Usage Block Editor: Search for “Contact Camo” in the block inserter (+), add it to your page, enter an email address in the sidebar, and you’re protected. Shortcode: [contactcamo email="[email protected]"] output: a basic anchor tag with default text [contactcamo email="[email protected]" label="Contact Us" form=true button=true] output: a clickable button with text that says “Contact Us” [contactcamo email="[email protected]" label="Contact Us" form=true button=true popup=true] output: a clickable button that, when clicked, pops up a modal contact form [contactcamo email="[email protected]" icon="email" display="both" iconsize="md"] output: a link with a mail icon and text [contactcamo email="[email protected]" id="one-contactcamo-to-rule-them-all" label="Fly, You Fools!" button=true class="btn btn-lg btn-lt-blue"] output: a large, styled clickable button with custom text Shortcode Parameters email required string the email address to be obfuscated label optional string default=”Email” the visible text on the link or button subject optional string pre-fills the email subject line icon optional string a Dashicon slug (e.g. email, phone, admin-users) to show alongside the label display optional string default=”both” controls what is shown: both (icon + text), icon (icon only), or text (text only) iconsize optional string default=”sm” icon size preset: xs (12px), sm (16px), md (20px), lg (28px), xl (36px), or custom iconsizepx optional integer default=20 custom icon size in pixels, used when iconsize=custom textcolor optional string a hex color value (e.g. #e63946) for the text and icon color form optional boolean default=false if true, show a contact form instead of opening an email client popup optional boolean default=false if true, show the contact form in a modal overlay when clicked formtitle optional string default=”Compose Email Message” the heading shown at the top of the popup form formwidth optional integer default=325 maximum width of the contact form in pixels; set to 0 for full width button optional boolean default=false if true, render a element instead of an tag containerpadding optional integer default=15 padding in pixels applied to the outer container class optional string CSS class(es) to add to the link or button element, space delimited id optional string HTML id attribute to add to the link or button element There is also an admin page for Contact Camo. From this page, you can configure where the contact form redirects after form submission.