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Recently SiteGround rebranded their SiteGround Security plugin as Security Optimizer. Along with that new name came new marketing. While the new marketing text for it on the WordPress Plugin Directory doesn’t mention that it contains a firewall, it wouldn’t be possible to offer the claimed protection without one. It is claimed that with it you can “bulletproof your website security in a few clicks” and that it provides “Advanced XSS Protection to fortify your website against malicious attacks.” As we found last week, that Advanced XSS Protection doesn’t even provide protection, much less does it provide the level of XSS protection provided by various plugins that contain firewalls. It also claims that it will “proactively monitor your site’s security to detect any suspicious activity,” which would also require a firewall if it truly detected any suspicious activity.
In testing going back years, the plugin has failed to provide protection against any vulnerabilities in other plugins, despite other options providing protection in at least some of the tests. The reason for that is simple: it doesn’t actually contain a firewall. Despite that, on the WordPress Plugin Directory SiteGround tagged it as a “firewall” and a “web application firewall.” [Read more]