Title: Security Controls
Author: WordPress VIP Documentation
Published: October 1, 2020
Last modified: August 20, 2025

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#  Security Controls

Tools in the VIP Dashboard and functions provided by [VIP MU Plugins](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-go-mu-plugins/)
offer ways to harden site security and limit site access to specific individuals,
IP addresses, and more.

**Note**

When increasing the security of a site or environment by applying settings that 
restrict access, ensure that [access for VIP Support users](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-support/site-access/)
is not blocked.

 * 
   ### 󠀁[Basic Authentication](https://docs.wpvip.com/security-controls/basic-authentication/)󠁿
   
 * Basic Authentication restricts site access to a limited set of users that have
   valid Basic Authentication login credentials
 * 
   ### 󠀁[IP Restrictions](https://docs.wpvip.com/security-controls/ip-restrictions/)󠁿
   
 * The IP Restrictions panel in the VIP Dashboard allows IP addresses to be added
   to an “IP Allow List” or an “IP Deny List” for an application’s environment.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[User Agent Restrictions](https://docs.wpvip.com/security-controls/user-agent-restrictions/)󠁿
   
 * Custom rules can be added to the VIP Dashboard’s User Agent Restrictions panel
   to block requests made by specific User Agents to an environment.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[WordPress Security Controls](https://docs.wpvip.com/security-controls/wordpress/)󠁿
   
 * WordPress Security Controls provides an additional layer of security, configurable
   options, and security recommendations in the VIP Dashboard.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Defensive Mode](https://docs.wpvip.com/security-controls/defensive-mode/)󠁿
   
 * Defensive Mode is a security feature that adds an extra layer of protection against
   spam bots and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Block unwanted origin requests with PHP](https://docs.wpvip.com/security-controls/block-origin-requests-with-php/)󠁿
   
 * The VIP_Request_Block utility class provides a programmatic way to block unwanted
   requests at the application level based on IP addresses, user agent strings, 
   and other parameters using PHP.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Access-Controlled Files](https://docs.wpvip.com/security-controls/access-controlled-files/)󠁿
   
 * The Access-Controlled Files feature restricts access to files and media uploaded
   to the WordPress Media Library of a site.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Partial restriction of site access](https://docs.wpvip.com/security-controls/partial-restriction-site-access/)󠁿
   
 * Partial restriction of site access can be achieved at the application level for
   incoming requests that reach the origin server.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[robots.txt](https://docs.wpvip.com/security-controls/robots-txt/)󠁿
   
 * The output of robots.txt can be modified with WordPress actions and filters.

Last updated: August 20, 2025