When it comes to protecting WordPress websites from being hacked through vulnerabilities in plugins, the solution is often simply keeping plugins up to date. But that doesn’t work when a hacker finds a vulnerability and starts exploiting it, otherwise known as a zero-day, as there is no update available. That is where an additional security plugin or service can possibly provide protection. But do they? The answer is often that they won’t. Making that more problematic is that often the marketing of the solutions would tell you otherwise.

Recently, we looked at one example of how firewall plugins could easily detect and stop exploit attempts for a widely exploited vulnerability, but most didn’t. Let’s look at another example of how a firewall plugin can provide protection. This time with a zero-day. We will touch on a couple of examples of why web application firewalls (WAFs) such as a cloud based security service are unable to handle things as well. [Read more]