Keeping your WordPress site safe often requires no more than the click of a button with Defender, our 5-star WordPress security plugin.
Defender protects your site 24/7 against hackers, malicious code, SQL injections, and much more. This guide shows you how to get the most out of using the plugin.
With Defender installed, your site’s security needs are automatically handled.
One of the great things about Defender is that he’ll automatically start suggesting ways to boost your site’s security as soon as he’s installed. He’ll then continue making regular suggestions while keeping your site safe, secure, and protected.
Despite all the built-in automation, when it comes to getting the most out of the plugin, Defender gives you plenty of room to tweak, finetune, and harden your site’s security settings.
This guide covers seven areas of WordPress security that you can count on Defender to monitor and address:
- Set Up Security Tweaks
- Activate One-Click Malware Scanning
- Track Changes with Audit Logging
- Ban Suspicious Behavior with Firewall
- Block Attacks with Web Application Firewall (WAF)
- Protect Your Logins with Two-factor Authentication
- Enhance Site Security with Advanced Tools
You will also find links to other great articles about Defender for more information on specific topics.
Let’s begin by showing you how to…
1. Set Up Security Tweaks
Once Defender is installed and activated, security issues are immediately brought to your attention.
This is where Security Tweaks can take care of most of them with one-click. Defender will show you how many issues you have, what they are, and how to fix them almost instantly.
Everything is displayed in an actionable list under Issues.
When you click on the dropdown for a specific issue, it gives you two options: Ignore or click the blue button to take care of the suggested security tweak with one-click.

If you choose to resolve the issue, it will then be in the Resolved area. If you ignore it, it will go in the Ignored section. If no action is taken, it will stay as an Issue.
If you resolve the issue and decide that you want to keep it the way it was,
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This article was written by Nathanael Fakes and originally published on WPMU DEV Blog.