If you have any kind of website, you absolutely need to have some type of application layer software running on your website to protect your investment.
What is a website firewall?
At the most basic level, a website firewall is software that runs alongside your website code to perform many security functions.
Most web hosting providers have firewall software running on their servers to protect the network and servers, but it leaves your website wide open by design, so your site visitors can view and interact with your website content.
But, what if your site visitors interact with your website in ways you didn’t intend? What if they entered malicious code into your forms to gain control of your website? What if bots tried to login to your website as the administrator? This is where a website firewall comes in.
Bots from Singapore
One of my websites was recently attacked by bots from Singapore and my website firewall blocked them immediately.
Take a look at these little bots 🙂
Malicious bot attacks happen all the time, so don’t be surprised to find out your website is constantly under attack, even if you don’t have a big or popular website. If your website is online. its fare game to the attackers.
Mario Seijo
Benefits of using a website firewall
There are many options when it comes to firewall software options, and today I’m going to focus on Wordfence for WordPress because it’s been working great for me.
Wordfence can be installed for free and you can also choose to pay if you want to use more features. At this time, I’m only using the free version because I find it useful and it does exactly what I need. Here is an overview of what you get.
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- Two-Factor Authentication – stop brute force attacks and bots guessing your password.
- Live Traffic – watch hackers trying to break into your site right now.
- Leaked password protection – blocks logins that use a known compromised password from a data breach.
- Country blocking – allows you to block traffic from specific countries that are clearly engaging in malicious activity.
- Security scanning – checks core files, themes, and plugins for malware, bad URLs, backdoors, SEO spam, malicious redirects, and code injections.
Are you protecting your website?
As you can see, websites are constantly under attack; sometimes by humans, but mostly by bots. Are you protecting your website? I recommend you do so as soon as possible, or if you’re not sure how to go about it, contact us and I’ll be happy to help you.
