Really Simple Security – Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL) vs Two Factor Auth

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!

Secure WordPress login with this two factor auth. Users will have to enter an One Time Password when they log in. Why You Need This Users can have common or weak passwords that lets hackers/bots brute-force your WordPress site and gain access to your files and place malware there. Just like happend not that long ago: Article on TechCrunch If all sites would have used this plugin, this would never happend. It doesn’t matter how weak your users passwords are, no one can gain access to your WordPress site without already having access to the users mobile phone or email inbox (depending on how the user gets his OTP). How Does It Work? This plugin uses the industry standard algorithm TOTP or HOTP for creating One Time Passwords. A OTP is valid for a certain time and after that a new code has to be entered. You can now choose to use third party apps like Google Authenticator which is available for most mobile platforms. You can really use any third party app that supports TOTP/HOTP that generates 6 digits OTP’s. Or, as before, you can choose to get your One Time Passwords by email. Since you have to enter a secret code to third party apps, email is the default way of delivering One Time Passwords. Your users will have to activate delivery by third party apps themselves. Easy To Use Just install this plugin and you’re all set. There’s really nothing more to it. If you want to use a third party app, goto Two Factor Auth in the admin menu and activate it and set up your app. General settings can be found uner Settings -> Two Factor Auth in admin menu. Settings for each individual user can be found at the root level of the admin menu, in Two Factor Auth. A bit more work to get logged in, but a whole lot more secure! If you use WooCommerce or other plugins that make custom login forms, you will not be able to login through those anymore. I will be adding a plugin that puts a One Time Password field to WooCommerce. If you use some other plugin that needs support for this, let me know in the support forum. TOTP or HOTP Which algorithm you and your users choose doesn’t really matter. The time based TOTP is a bit more secure since a One Time Password is valid only for a certain amount of time. But this requires the server time to be in sync the clients time (if the OTP isn’t delivered by email). This is often hard to do with embedded clients and the event based HOTP is then a better choice. If you have a somewhat slow email server and have chosen email delivery, you might not get the TOTP in time. Conslusion: Choose which ever you want. TOTP is a little bit safer since OTP:s only are valid for a short period. Note that email delivery users always uses the site default algorithm, which you can set on the settings page. Third party apps users can choose which one they want. Is this really Two Factor Auth? Before version 3.0 this plugin had ‘kind of’ two factor auth where the OTP was delivered to an email address. Since version 3.0 you can have real two factor auth if you activate the Third Party Apps delivery type. Read more about what two factor auth means >>. See http://oskarhane.com/plugin-two-factor-auth-for-wordpress/ for more info.