As a WordPress user, you are always advised to take certain important measures that will protect your site from getting hacked or being used for illegal purposes. If you implement some simple but necessary security checks on your WordPress blog you will be able to avoid a lot of unnecessary hassle and unwanted intervention. If your blog is not secure enough, it naturally becomes the victim of hackers who can use it for unethical purposes. This will eventually hamper your work. With the advancement of technology and the invention of harmful software, it is becoming easier for people to hack into unprotected WordPress blogs and use them in a way that can really harm the reputation of a WordPress site developer.

Bloggers on WordPress put in a lot of hard work to build their website and it is a big disappointment when such a blog is hacked for the wrong reasons. As a result of this, bloggers naturally lose many followers. The hackers make wrong use of private information and they hack and alter sites according to their will. The main reason why WordPress is attracting the attention of spammers and hackers from all over the world is the increasing popularity of WordPress. Millions of users from everywhere have chosen WordPress as their favorite blogging site, and consequentially hackers too are eager about breaking into the personal blogs of users and misuse the content of the blogs.

To prevent facing such hassle you should give priority to the security of your website when you are starting to make your blog. If you do this you will make sure that your own data, as well as that of the ones who visit your blog, stays safe and secure. Though WordPress has the reputation of being an otherwise secure and safe site, it is always advisable to take some personal measures as well.

There are some security plugins that can be used by WordPress users to fully secure their blogs and prevent them from getting hacked. The ten Essential WordPress Security Plugins to Keep Your Blog Safe are listed below-

  1. Security Ninja

This is one of the most widely used WordPress security plugins used by WordPress site developers. This plugin has attained popularity because of its various important features. It can perform more than 31 tests and among these tests, there is also the 'brute force attack'. It constantly checks your WordPress site to see that its security is not becoming vulnerable. This plug-in also takes whatever preventive measure is necessary to protect your site from external attacks. Security Ninja also guarantees that it can easily prevent exploit attacks. Moreover, in order to perform quick fixes, it makes use of snippets of included codes. Apart from all this, this plug-in also offers major help that will suit your specific need, and if you want you can even check the descriptions of tests that are included here.

  1. BulletProof Security Pro

Another popular plug-in that can be used for the security of your WordPress website is the BulletProof Security Pro. With one click of your mouse, this plugin will keep the website folder safe. This plugin also secures the wp-admin part of your WordPress. The best thing about this plug-in is that it guarantees a hundred percent security from various viruses and hacking in general. You can stay assured that with the help of this plugin your blog will be safe from CSRF, XSS, SQL, Base64, RFL Injection, and other such Code injection or attempts to hack. The other interactive feature of this plug-in is that it allows the user to use an "under maintenance" sign when the site developer is still making their website. This is a highly useful maintenance factor of this plugin.

  1. wpOptimix

This particular plugin is popular among the users of WordPress as it has some essential features that ensure complete safety and protection against hackers. This plugin has features like a firewall, a reputation scanner, backup, login that is secured and simplified, a detection system that can sense attacks of brute force, a WordPress scanner, and so on. The fascinating thing about this plug-in is that it not only is famous for the security it provides, but it can also even perform other vital miscellaneous functions that are critical for the smooth running of your WordPress blog. The main feature that has made it popular among its users is that this plugin promises to return your money in 3 days if you are not satisfied with its services. It already has more than 1000 happy users all over the world.

  1. AntiVirus For WordPress

Apart from running the risk of getting hacked, there are also constant changes of viruses ruining your WordPress site. Like any other site on the web, WordPress also is vulnerable to viruses, malware, and worms. When you are installing your WordPress, these viruses may affect the process of installation. You must be aware of the spam injections that hinder you from operating your WordPress site smoothly.

As a solution to all these recurring problems, you can use the AntiVirus plug-in. This plugin will constantly warn you about harmful injections, spam, or any sort of such harmful attack. It does an excellent job of monitoring every data in your site and thus is best capable of warning the user about any malcontent, then blocking it instantly. It has become popular among WordPress users all over the world because it supports multiple languages. This makes it very easy to use. It can successfully block harmful content, virus, bad links, worms, and spam. Moreover, after it has made a list of the blocks that are going to be made it also sends the required email to the email address describing all about the attempts that were made to intrude into the WordPress site. In these emails, it is also informed that these addresses have been blocked, and an additional white list of IP addresses is also included in this mail.

  1. WP Security Scan

This is yet another plug-in that is extremely powerful and every WordPress website developer is advised to use this. This plugin is so strong that it is capable of moving through all the loopholes that could possibly exist in security in only some seconds. After this, the plugin creates a list of the vulnerabilities that could be there in your WordPress website. These may include passwords t files or permissions. Next, WP Security Scan makes an expert list of suggestions about the actions that you should take to deal with whatever problems you are having.

  1. AskApache Password Protect

This particular plug-in works on multiple layers, as it adds security to WordPress and its entire database without making any changes to your personal blog. It makes no necessary changes at all but only adds to the safety of the database of WordPress. It is specially designed and constantly upgraded to check the attacks on your blogs. If these blogs are vulnerable to attacks then there are increased chances of the website of WordPress getting hacked. AskApache Password Protect is also capable of blocking all spam or harmful attempts that are made to hack into a website. In short, it can be said that this particular plugin can save all kinds of resources. It can protect the resources saved in your database, the usage of the CPU, your money, and other things from every kind of attack.

  1. Defensio Anti-Spam

Another very important plugin that ensures advanced filtering is the Defensio Anti-Spam plugin. It is undoubtedly the best and one of the most advanced plugins made for this purpose. This plugin is so advanced that it is designed to detect the very behavior of the blogger and the blog reader. Some of the most important features of this plugin are that this plugin has OpenID support, charts, RSS feeds of all comments made on the user's blog, and elaborated statistics. Other than this the blog also has its own counter widget.

  1. NoSpamNX

This specific plugin does the vital task of automatically adding all the additional fields of forms to the comment section of a WordPress blog. The best part is that this is not at all visible to any human user. When such invisible fields are filled up by spambots then these comments are never really saved. This is the common rule based on which any form field functions. Based on this the WordPress user can make the decision of blocking that particular spambot or even if necessary have it marked as spam.

  1. WP-DBManager

The WP-DBManager is a unique plugin that manages and takes care of the database of WordPress. This plugin gives the owner the full right to do works such as optimizing the database, repairing it, making a backup of the database, restoring it, or even deleting the backup. The owner can even drop or empty the associated tables and also run all the optional queries. This plugin actually gives all the necessary support for a scheduled automatic backup. It also guarantees maximum optimization of the database.

  1. iThemes Security

This plugin has been chosen by many users as their favorite and the reasons for this are plenty. It is highly recommended that every WordPress user install it during WordPress installation. iThemes Security does the massive task of combining all the best security features and technicalities of WordPress and turning them into one plugin. This single powerful plugin then ensures that all security loopholes are mended and covered. All this is done in a way that makes sure that you are not having to worry too much about the various conflicting features. Or for that matter, the chances of missing anything that is too vital on your site is reduced. iThemes Security can protect any WP site with the help of its various features, along with special advanced features that are meant for users who have had more experience with WordPress. Some of the pro features of Better WP Security are that this plugin can easily track when the user is editing the content of the blog, the time of the user's login, or their logout. When you are logging in you can use Google Authenticator to send a secure custom code that will reach your phone. This enables two-factor authentication.

This plugin is designed in a way that it can simply scan the URL or any specific file on a prefixed schedule and in the process even easily check the entire site while other users are browsing through your site. This does not hinder normal action. Another promised feature of GeolP banning will soon be added to iThemes Security. The advanced version of iThemes Security can boost user credentials and stop every sort of automated attack. The best thing about iThemes Security is that it makes your site less vulnerable to outside attacks and hides crucial information about your site's admin, login, and so on. This plugin entirely changes URLs for dashboard spaces of WordPress where login and admin names are mentioned. The away mode of this plugin will not allow the user to log in within a certain period of time. This plugin even removes the tag for meta 'Generator'. Users who are not having the permission of updating themes, plugins, and other such update notifications will not be able to view them as they will be removed by iThemes Security. Certain header information of RSD and such will be removed too. Apart from making the details of your WordPress site more obscure, this plugin also protects your site from bad users and increases the security of the passwords of your site. This plugin even bans users who may seem to cause spam and pose to be troublesome. It strengthens the security of the server and also makes sure that your password is strong and has a configurable and very minimal role.