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If you are wondering about the difference between free and premium Wordfence plugins, this article will explain the
differences. Having used the premium plugin for many years, there is no question based on our experience that the plugin is
among the best available for your WordPress business website.
It is important to note from the start, that although the premium is ultimately far better at securing your WordPress website,
you get a lot of value from the free version.
The free version easily installs and immediately will help protect your website from brute forces attacks by hackers. Brute force
security attacks are essentially when a hacker tries to use multiple password variations to break into your website.
If the passwords being tried were done one-by-one there would be little concern. Unfortunately, hackers use software to
basically spew out millions of combinations.
For this reason, as you will often hear, it is important to change your username to sign in to your back office from the default
ADMIN username when WordPress is installed, to a name that is not easy to guess. As will be discussed this will make it that
much more difficult for brute force attacks.
Anything is better than using admin as this gives the hacker half of the access information to access your website.
Website Backup Security
Before getting into the difference between the free and premium Wordfence plugin, one other very important security detail to
keep in mind to back up your website in at least two places and don’t only rely on your hosting company.
Hosting companies on more than one occasion, have failed to back up websites, whether it be because of a technical issue or
because it was not clear when purchasing a hosting plan what the backup policy included. There is nothing worse than having
your website hacked and finding that you have no backup of your database. In 2022, this should not happen as there are many
ways to back your website up. We use Updraft, in addition to a hosting backup. Even a third backup is not a bad idea.
Your Business Website Is An Asset You Want To Protect … It’s Your “Brick And Mortar” Store Online.
Your website will become a tremendous asset and if you get hacked it can be devastating if you cannot restore the timeless
hours and money you spent to build your website. The Updraft plugin is an excellent plugin to back up your website and like
most plugins does have a premium plan that offers a lot more features. The free plugin will do the basics and can save you a lot
of problems at no cost.
When you have a backup stored on a regular basis, you will not live in fear of your site being hacked. If you get hacked, you will
simply access the most recent backed-up database you have and restore your website in minutes.
PLEASE do not ignore this step. When starting a website it is exciting and can easily be put off at first, thinking “it’s a technical
issue that will never happen to me”… until it does!!!! It happens far more often than you think.
With WordPress being the most popular CMS platform online it gets attacked more often than other CMS platforms.
Fortunately, the many knowledgeable developers working with WordPress are almost always able to resolve security breaches quickly.
So now, for the difference between free and premium Wordfence plugin
Endpoint Web Application Firewall
Identify and block malicious attackers targeting WordPress.
Firewall Rules & Malware Signatures
Wordfence Free receives the Wordfence Threat Defense Feed only after a 30-day delay.
The free version of Wordfence does not include the IP blocklist.
Robust Security Tools
Malware scanning, two-factor authentication, rate limiting, brute force protection, vulnerability alerts, and more.
Block the Newest Exploits
Wordfence Premium customers receive new firewall rules the moment our threat intelligence team releases them. When attackers invent new techniques to exploit WordPress, we deploy firewall rules to protect our Premium customers in real-time. With Wordfence Premium, you are protected from the newest exploits as we discover them.
Detect the Newest Malware
Wordfence Premium customers also receive new malware detection capabilities in real-time. Our team writes detection signatures for new malware variants and immediately deploys those signatures to your Wordfence installation, giving you the ability to detect even the newest malware. Our malware signatures are used by your firewall to prevent hackers from uploading malware, and they’re used by your Wordfence scanner to detect any malware in your filesystem.
Block Malicious IP Addresses in Real-Time
Wordfence is used by over 4 million websites, which means that we see attack reports from millions of websites every day. The Wordfence team knows who is attacking WordPress. Our sophisticated real-time algorithm is continuously updating the blocklist containing 25,000 to 60,000 active malicious IP addresses. Premium customers regularly receive updates to this list which outright prevents these dangerous IP addresses from accessing your site.
(Courtesy of Wordfence. com)
If you are new to the Wordfence plugin, check out our article: How to install the Wordfence plugin
Based on the discussion above I hope the answer to a question often asked has been answered. The question is simply: Is
Wordfence premium worth it? Assuming it is within your budget the premium version is far more powerful and is definitely
worth it to protect your website.
Every time we have a website that is ready to upgrade security, we have purchased the premium Wordfence plugin version and
it has always lived up to the expectations you would expect from a quality product. The support is excellent and with the
premium plan the support is second do non should you have any security breaches or technical questions.
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