Really Simple Security – Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL) vs REST XML-RPC Data Checker

Easily improve site security with WordPress Hardening, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), Login Protection, Vulnerability Detection and SSL certificate. Really simple, Effective and Performant WordPress Security Really Simple Security is the most lightweight and easy-to-use security plugin for WordPress. It secures your WordPress website with SSL certificate generation, including proper 301 https redirection and SSL enforcement, scanning for possible vulnerabilities, Login Protection and implementing essential WordPress hardening features. We believe that security should have the absolute minimum effect on website performance, user experience and maintainability. Therefore, Really Simple Security is: Lightweight: Every security feature is developed with a modular approach and with performance in mind. Disabled features won’t load any redundant code. Easy-to-use: 1-minute configuration with short onboarding setup. Security Features Easy SSL Migration Migrates your website to HTTPS and enforces SSL in just one click. 301 redirect via PHP or .htaccess Secure cookies Let’s Encrypt: Install an SSL Certificate if your hosting provider supports manual installation. Server Health Check: Your server configuration is every bit as important for your website security. WordPress Hardening Tweak your configuration and keep WordPress fortified and safe by tackling potential weaknesses. Prevent code execution in the uploads folder Prevent login feedback and disable user enumeration Disable XML-RPC Disable directory browsing Username restrictions (block ‘admin’ and public names) and much more.. Vulnerability Detection Get notified when plugins, themes or WP core contain vulnerabilities and need appropriate action. Login Protection Allow or enforce Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for specific user roles. Users receive a two-factor code via Email. Improve Security with Really Simple Security Pro Protect your site with all essential security features by upgrading to Really Simple Security Pro. Advanced SSL enforcement Mixed Content Scan & Fixer. Detect files that are requested over HTTP and fix them to HTTPS, both Front- and Back-end. Enable HTTP Strict Transport Security and configure your site for the HSTS Preload list. Firewall Really Simple Security Pro includes a performant and efficient WordPress firewall, to stop bots, crawlers and bad actors with IP and username blocks. 404 blocking – Blocks crawlers as they trigger unusual numbers of 404 errors. Region blocking – Only allow/block access to your site from specific regions. Automated and customisable Firewall rules. IP blocklist and allowlist. Security Headers Security headers protect your site visitors against the risk of clickjacking, cross-site-forgery attacks, stealing login credentials and malware. Independent of your Server Configuration, works on Apache, LiteSpeed, NGINX, etc. Protect your website visitors with X-XSS Protection, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, a Referrer Policy and CORS headers. Automatically generate your WordPress-tailored Content Security Policy. Vulnerability Measures When a vulnerability is detected in a plugin, theme or WordPress core you will get notified accordingly. With Vulnerability Measures, you can configure simple but effective measures to make sure that a critical vulnerability won’t remain unattended. Force update: An update process will be tried multiple times until it can be assumed development of a theme or plugin is abandoned. You will be notified during these steps. Quarantine: When a plugin or theme can’t be updated to solve a vulnerability, Really Simple Security can quarantine the plugin. Advanced Site Hardening Choose a custom login URL Automated File Permissions check and fixer Rename and randomize your database prefix Change the debug.log file location to a non-public folder Disable application passwords Control admin creation Disable HTTP methods, reducing HTTP requests Login Protection Secure your website’s login process and user accounts with powerful security measures. Two-Step verification (Email login) 2FA (two factor authentication) with TOTP Passwordless login with passkey login Enforce strong passwords and frequent password change Limit Login Attempts With Limit Login Attempts you can configure a threshold to temporarily or permanently block IP addresses or (non-existing) usernames. You can also throw a CAPTCHA after a failed login (hCaptcha or Google reCaptcha) Access Control Restrict access to your site for specific regions. Add specific IP addresses or IP ranges to the Blocklist or Allowlist. Useful Links Documentation Security Definitions Translate Really Simple Security Issues & pull requests Feature requests Love Really Simple Security? If you want to support the continuing development of this plugin, please consider buying Really Simple Security Pro, which includes some excellent security features and premium support. About Really Simple Plugins Our mission is to make complex WordPress requirements really easy. Really Simple Security is developed by Really Simple Plugins. For generating SSL certificates, Really Simple Security uses the le acme2 PHP Let’s Encrypt client library, thanks to ‘fbett’ for providing it. Vulnerability Detection uses WP Vulnerability, an open-source initiative by Javier Casares. Want to join as a collaborator? We’re on GitHub as well!

JSON REST API and XML-RPC API are powerful ways to remotely interact with WordPress. If you don’t have external applications that need to communicate with your WordPress instance using JSON REST API or XML-RPC API you should disable access to them for external requests. In the standard WordPress installation JSON REST API and XML-RPC API are enabled by default. In particular the REST API is turned on also for unlogged users. This means that your WordPress instance is potentially leaking data, for example anyone could be able to: copy easily your published contents natively with the REST API (and not with a web crawler); get the list of all users (with their ID, nickname and name); retrieve other information that you didn’t want to be public (such as an unlisted published page or a saved media not yet used). Even if you could do the stuff by writing your own code using native filters, this plugin aims to help you to control JSON REST API and XML-RPC API accesses from the administration panel or programmatically by a simple API filter. Basic Features Disable REST API interface for unlogged users. Disable JSONP support on REST API. Add Basic Authentication to REST API. Remove REST tags, REST Link HTTP header and REST Really Simple Discovery (RSD) informations. Setup trusted users, IP/Networks and endpoints for unlogged users REST requests. Change REST endpoint prefix. Disable XML-RPC API interface. Remove to the Really Simple Discovery (RDS) informations. Remove X-Pingback HTTP header. Setup trusted users, IP/Networks and methods for XML-RPC requests. Show user’s access informations in users list administration screen. Usage Once the plugin is installed you can control settings in the following ways: Using the Settings->REST XML-RPC Data Checker administration screen. Programmatically, by using rest_xmlrpc_data_checker_settings filter (see below). API Hooks rest_xmlrpc_data_checker_settings Filters plugin settings values. apply_filters( 'rest_xmlrpc_data_checker_settings', array $settings ) rest_xmlrpc_data_checker_admin_settings Filter allowing to display or not the plugin settings page in the administration. apply_filters( 'rest_xmlrpc_data_checker_admin_settings', boolean $display ) rest_xmlrpc_data_checker_rest_error Filter JSON REST authentication error after plugin checks. apply_filters( 'rest_xmlrpc_data_checker_rest_error', WP_Error|boolean $result ) xmlrpc_before_insert_post Filter XML-RPC post data to be inserted via XML-RPC before to insert post into database. apply_filters( 'xmlrpc_before_insert_post', array|IXR_Error $content_struct, WP_User $user )