How to Configure Security Plugins

With so many risks threatening sites today, making sure yours is protected is critical. Unfortunately, figuring out the best WordPress security plugin to use can be challenging.

In this article, we’ll introduce you to some of the best WordPress security plugins and discuss how to configure them and prevent some unwanted issues that could happen within MemberPress.

When using a security plugin, you might see some subscriptions and transactions in MemberPress that are not recorded correctly, meaning they don't have valid id numbers and instead you will see temporary ones (for example: mp-sub-xxxxx). When it comes to subscriptions and mp-txn-xxxxxx related to transactions one of the things that could be causing this is a security plugin that is not properly configured.

To resolve this you will need to allow the following IP addresses through (called “whitelisting”) based on the gateway you are using:

– PayPal you will need to allow the following IPs:
https://memberpress.com/docs/paypal-standard/#issues
– Stripe you will need to allow the following IPs:
https://memberpress.com/docs/stripe/#issues
– Authorize.Net you will need to allow the following IPs: 198.241.206.38 and 198.241.207.38

BBQ Pro

The whitelisting options are found in the WordPress backend under BBQ Pro > Settings > Whitelist IPs.

Clean Talk

Instructions on whitelisting for CleanTalk can be found on the developer's website.

Defender Security

The whitelisting options are found in the WordPress backend under Defender > Firewall > IP Banning > Allowlist.

iThemes Security

In this application, whitelisted IP addresses are called authorized hosts and are added through the setup wizard. Once the setup wizard is complete, you can also enter or modify the IP addresses under Security > Settings > Configure > Authorized Hosts

OSE Anti-Hacker

The whitelisting options can be found in Components > OSE Anti-Hacker > IP Management

RS Firewall

The whitelisting options can be found in Components > RSFirewall > Blacklist/Whitelist.

SecurityCheck

The whitelisting options can be found in Components > Securitycheck > Main menu > Web Firewall Configuration > Lists.

Sucuri Firewall

The whitelisting options could be found in your Sucuri Settings Panel where you should enter your current IP address under the Whitelist IP Addresses section.

Click on Whitelist to whitelist your IP address once you have typed it into the box.

Wordfence

The whitelisting options are found in the WordPress backend under 
WordFence > All Options > Firewall Options > Advanced Firewall Options.

Note: Since most of the hosting companies have firewalls enabled within their basic plans we recommend checking with them and making sure that all the provided IPs (depending on your gateway) are allowed there as well.