Cyber-attacks and data breaches become a more frequent concern for WordPress security. Thus keeping your WordPress site safe should be a top priority.
Manually setting up security measures is a less effective process today. Even getting a security expert may cost you a hefty investment. So using an automated WordPress security plugin fits smarter. It makes your task easier and affordable.
In this article, we evaluate MalCare. A widely trusted WordPress security plugin from the makers of BlogVault, a leading WordPress backup plugin.
All About the MalCare Security Plugin
MalCare is a comprehensive WordPress security solution. Currently, more than 400,000 websites are using it. It’s easy to install and configure. Performs deep malware scanning. Thus ensures your website continues to run at optimum speed.
Therefore, it also offers additional security functions like the CAPTCHA tool for login page protection, bulk updating all installed plugins and themes, and managing user privileges.
Here’s a list of top MalCare features. Take a look-
- Easy installation and setup
- Deep Malware scanning technology
- One-click malware removal
- Comprehensive firewall protection
- Login page protection
- Independent and centralized dashboard for website management
- Website hardening measures
- Website backup facility
- Affordable pricing and customer support
Well, let’s assess each of these features in detail.
Easy Installation and Setup
Installing and setting up MalCare for your website is easy. All you need to do is sign-up with MalCare using your email address.
Following user registration, you will receive an email from MalCare containing the link to the MalCare dashboard. Then Sign-in to your MalCare dashboard and start using MalCare. It’s as simple as that.
Add the list of websites to be secured in the following screen:
And then install the plugin either manually or automatically.
Therefore, once the installation is complete, MalCare automatically performs a complete scan. If it finds a threat, it immediately notifies you. Then you can remove the malware from the dashboard itself.
Deep Malware Scanning
MalCare’s deep-clean scan uses an advanced dynamic algorithm to detect even the most complex threats.
However, take a look at some notable MalCare features for your WordPress security-
Incremental Sync: It performs initial sync of your website on the MalCare servers after installation. This ensures that subsequent syncs of your website are done using smaller manageable chunks.
Offsite Scanning: Ensures your website performance is never affected by the malware scanner. The data is lifted to MalCare’s secure servers and then scanned. Since there’s no load on your server, your site can perform at its best even when you need to run a heavy-duty scan.
100+ Intelligent Signals: Enables early detection of malware infections on your website. These intelligent signals track and monitor every file change occurring on your website.
Support for Scheduled and On-demand scanning: It enables you to schedule automated scans. There’s no limit to the number of on-demand scans you can run.
One-Click Malware Removal
Apart from malware detection, this WordPress security plugins also offer instant removal of malware with a single click. With one-click malware removal from the MalCare dashboard, it ensures that you do not need to wait for any security professional to perform the task.
Here are some of the main benefits of using MalCare for malware removal-
- One-click removal of malware (currently offered only by MalCare)
- Automatic malware clean-up that does not affect your website performance
- Targeted malware removal that identifies and removes malware from the exact file location
Comprehensive Firewall Protection
MalCare provides an in-built web application firewall. It monitors incoming traffic and IP requests to your website. Prevents access to any suspicious or malicious requests. The firewall can provide safety from hackers and automated bots trying to access your website.
Take a look at the main features of the MalCare firewall-
Blocking of Bad IP Requests: MalCare maintains a list of malicious IP addresses which hackers use to send out harmful IP requests. The firewall automatically blocks any requests received from these IP addresses.
Geo-Blocking: This is particularly useful if your website has been receiving malicious attacks from a selected country or geographical location. Geo-blocking prevents all IP requests originating from that region from reaching your website.
Login Page Protection
Using brute force attacks, hackers deploy automated bots. Then try out combinations of login credentials to gain entry into your login page. Successful brute force attacks can end up giving complete control of your WordPress website to hackers.
MalCare provides the following measures to protect your login page from such brute force attacks-
CAPTCHA Login Protection is an effective mode of identifying and preventing the entry of bots into WordPress accounts. It does this by first differentiating between a human user and a bot through a response-test. After three failed login attempts, the CAPTCHA screen comes up and asks the user to perform the test.
Two-Factor Authentication (or 2FA) is a process where the user trying to login to the account must first enter the correct user credentials. Followed by a random code that is sent to the user’s registered number. This method is effective in preventing unauthorized access to your website account.
MalCare lets you view the login requests (as shown above) and alerts you if there are multiple failed login attempts from a single IP address so that you can take preventive action.
Centralized Dashboard for Website Management
MalCare comes with an independent and centralized dashboard. It allows you to manage your WordPress site more efficiently. As an admin, you can perform many operations like managing your installed plugins/themes, client reporting, managing your users and user roles, etc.
Here’s a detailed look at what you can do on the MalCare dashboard-
Update all installed plugins/ themes: Are you managing multiple websites? Then you probably have installed multiple WordPress plugins/themes to them. Updating each of these themes/plugins to their latest version is time-consuming yet important. From your MalCare dashboard, you can view all your installed plugins/themes and update all of them from a single location.
Client Reporting: Are you managing multiple client websites? Do you need to provide them with regular website reports? Leave it to MalCare to take care of this boring task by generating insightful client reports derived from their website data.
White Labeling: Do you have a team of WordPress plugin developers working on a variety of plugins for your clients? The white labeling function rebrand your plugin as your own or even hide them from your clients.
User Management: The dashboard makes this simple by allowing you to add, modify, and delete users as well as assign their user privileges from a single location.
Website Hardening Measures
To improve website security, WordPress has recommended a list of website hardening measures. They should be enabled by every WordPress website. As a MalCare user, you can use its dashboard to easily enable each of these measures. Simply log in and click the ‘’Apply Hardening’’ button from the Firewall section (as shown below).
You can then select each of the following options-
Disable File Editor: This measure prevents any edits from being made to the installed plugins and themes using any file editor. This is necessary to prevent hackers from making any plugin code changes.
Block PHP Execution: To damage website files, hackers write malicious code in PHP files. They located in selected WordPress folders like wp-content/uploads or the wp-includes folder. By enabling this step, you can block the execution of this malicious code.
Changing Security Keys: Therefore, hackers try to gain access to the encrypted information of your website backup located on the MalCare servers through the use of security keys. This advanced hardening measure ensures that you regularly regenerate your security key to improving protection.
Disallow Plugin Installation: This hardening measure disables the installation of new plugins on your website. This measure is necessary for preventing hackers from installing rogue plugins that can compromise your website.
Website Backup Facility
In addition to security measures, every website must also have a good backup facility. In case of any mishap, the data should be restored quickly from the available backups. For MalCare users, the backup facility is provided by BlogVault, a cloud-based solution that takes incremental backups of your whole website.
Apart from taking backups, BlogVault also offers free staging, which is useful for your developers to apply and test updates to your installed plugins/themes safely without impacting your live website. Once you are satisfied with the tests on the staging environment, you can then merge these changes on the live website.
Affordable Pricing and Customer Support
MalCare provides 24×7 customer support through email or online chat. The customer support team responds fast to your doubts or complaints.
MalCare offers a variety of annual subscription plans that are customized according to the number of websites. The basic plan for a personal user (with one website) is priced at an affordable $8.25 per month. You can get complete details of all their plans from the MalCare Pricing page.
Final Thoughts
A complete WordPress security solution is very effective to secure your website from online attacks. MalCare is packed with the best of malware detection. Furthermore, it is affordable for large or small-time business enterprises alike.
If you need to secure your WordPress website, we recommend MalCare – your one-stop solution to WordPress backup and security.
As it is a dynamic tool, you can integrate MalCare with your WordPress ERP system to keep your business information safe and secure.
