Secure HTTP Headers vs Security Hardener

Harden your web applications. HTTP header fields are components of the header section of request and response messages. The headers define the operating parameters of an HTTP transaction. Securing HTTP headers will improve the resilience of your web application against many common attacks including those that are on the OWASP top 10 list. Securing headers can also improve your SEO rank and in addition to preventing websites from being marked as dangerous by browsers and antivirus applications. Protect sensitive user information and be compliant with privacy regulations. Defend users from stealing private data by protecting website cookies. Use the proper directive such as “secure”, “httponly” and “samesite”, all of those will be applied automatically by “Secure HTTP Headers” plugin. Secure HTTP Headers will automatically analyze any website and will build up secure headers directives, by the latest best practice. In addition, Secure HTTP Headers offers fully configurable options, apply or skip any header directive as needed. Install and activate Secure HTTP Headers with full confidence, the deactivation of this plugin will return your website header directives to their original state. Main plugin functionality HTTP Strict Transport Security – helps to protect websites against man-in-the-middle attacks and cookie hijacking X-Frame-Options – helps to protect users against ClickJacking attacks X-Content-Type-Options – helps to prevent the browser from MIME-sniffing Referrer-Policy – helps to control how much referrer information should be included with requests Clear-Site-Data – helps to ensure that data is deleted from the browser if the user logs out X-Download-Options – helps to control how IE 8 will handle downloaded HTML files Access-Control-Allow-Origin – helps to ensure whether the response can be shared with requesting code from the given origin Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy – helps to prevent a document from loading any cross-origin resources that don’t explicitly grant the document permission Permissions-Policy – helps to allow and deny the use of browser features in its own frame, and in content within any iframe elements in the document Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy – helps to protect websites against a set of cross-origin attacks dubbed XS-Leaks Cross-Origin-Resource-Policy – helps to protect websites against speculative side-channel attacks, like Spectre, as well as Cross-Site Script Inclusion attacks X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies – helps to control how cross-domain requests from Flash and PDF documents are handled Cookie Http-Only flag – helps to protect websites against Cross-Site Scripting, or XSS attacks Cookie Secure flag – helps to ensure that cookie is sent over a secure connection Cookie Samesite Lax flag – helps to protect websites against CSRF and XSSI attacks Expect-CT – helps to prevent the use of misissued certificates for a website. Note: The Expect-CT will likely become obsolete in June 2021 What are the optional extras? Magnisec is offering “Secure HTTP Headers enhanced” A plugin that contains, in addition, an engine that watches and builds in any website changes a CSP – Content Security Policy that is best practice and recommended by all professional securities experts, that mitigate XSS -Cross site Scripting, one of the most common and destructive attacks. Price: 50$ /year for a domain. More details and installation here

Security Hardener applies WordPress security best practices based on the WordPress Advanced Administration / Security / Hardening documentation and widely accepted hardening measures. It uses WordPress core functions and follows best practices without modifying core files. Key Features File Security: * Disable file editor in WordPress admin * Optionally disable all file modifications XML-RPC Protection: * Disable XML-RPC completely * Remove pingback methods when XML-RPC is enabled Pingback Protection: * Disable self-pingbacks * Remove X-Pingback header * Block incoming pingbacks User Enumeration Protection: * Block /?author=N queries (returns 404) * Secure REST API user endpoints (require authentication) * Remove users from XML sitemaps * Prevent canonical redirects that expose usernames * Optionally block author feed pages (/author/username/feed/) * Optionally anonymize the author name in oEmbed responses Login Security: * Generic error messages (no username/password hints) * Login honeypot * Block unsafe usernames * Application Passwords disabled by default * IP-based rate limiting with configurable thresholds * Security event logging Security Headers: * X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN (clickjacking protection) * X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff (MIME sniffing protection) * Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin * Permissions-Policy (restricts geolocation, microphone, camera) * Optional HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) for HTTPS sites — max-age set to 1 year Additional Hardening: * Hide WordPress version (meta generator tag and asset query strings) * Remove obsolete wp_head items (RSD, WLW manifest, shortlink, emoji scripts) * System Status — monitors file permissions, WP_DEBUG, user registration, PHP version, administrator accounts, and database version ⚠️ Important: Always test security settings in a staging environment first. Some features may affect third-party integrations or plugins. Privacy: This plugin does not send data to external services and does not create custom database tables. It stores plugin settings and a security event log in the WordPress options table, and uses transients for temporary login attempt tracking. All data is preserved on uninstall by default and only deleted if the “Delete all data on uninstall” option is explicitly enabled.