Ever since my WP site was hacked and defaced back in 2012 by who claimed to be the “Kuwait Hackers” group, I became especially paranoid of using WP plugins wildly on my site and in fact started installing plugins that would aid in hardening and scanning the site for security issues. I started a routine of checking for plugin updates, backing up my DB and, at first, used .htaccess to blacklist IP addresses that showed up with significant numbers of failed logins or 404 errors. It became a taunting endeavor  and I spent countless hours trying to stay ahead of the bad guys on my site and the three other sites I was managing as sub-domains for customers.

So, when the All-In-One WordPress Security & Firewall plugin became available to the WP community four years ago, I installed it and was amazed at the plethora of security features it offered. The plugin was easy to set up, with clear instructions. I get an email when someone suspicious tries to login to my site or generates too many 404 errors, so I can counter threats fairly proactively. The options I implemented negatively affect any of my performance or other plugins (some of which are additional security plugins). Check out the link or see the video below for details on all the features.

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