Stop Bots, Protect Data, and Pass Any Audit — Starting at 0
Most sites run insecure until something breaks — leaked form submissions, spoofed emails landing in spam, exposed API keys, no alert when a page goes dark. HLDHub runs the same security hardening across 10 live franchise properties: WAF rules, email authentication, encrypted secrets, rate-limited APIs, and a monitor that catches downtime before your customers do. We ship it to your site in under a week, starting at 0 one-time.
Everything in the Hardening Package
One engagement covers the full surface area — edge, email, application layer, secrets management, and monitoring. No a-la-carte upsells after the fact.
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Cloudflare WAF + Turnstile Anti-Bot
Rules configured to block bad actors at the edge before they touch your server. Turnstile deployed on every public form — challenges bots invisibly, no CAPTCHA friction for real users.
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Email Authentication (DKIM / SPF / DMARC)
All three DNS records configured and validated so your transactional mail lands in inbox, not spam. DMARC starts at monitoring mode (p=none) and graduates to quarantine after 30 days of clean reports.
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AES-256-GCM Secrets Encryption
API keys, Stripe secrets, and third-party credentials encrypted at rest. No plaintext secrets sitting in config files or leaking through source control.
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.env Hardening (mode 600)
Environment files locked to owner-read-only. File permissions audited across the full stack so nothing sensitive is world-readable by other processes or users.
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HMAC-Signed APIs + Rate Limiting
Internal and outbound API endpoints signed with HMAC to block spoofed requests. Rate limits set per endpoint to stop brute-force attacks and aggressive scraping cold.
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HLD OPS Monitor + PII Audit
The same uptime and health monitor we run across our own fleet — downtime and broken deploys get flagged to us, not discovered by a lost customer. Includes a review of how you collect, store, and expire personally identifiable information.
We Didn't Learn This From a Checklist
These are not best-practice recommendations pulled from a whitepaper. They are the controls we operate daily across 10 live revenue-generating sites.
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Operators, Not Consultants
When something breaks on our own properties at 2 AM, we fix it. That operational skin-in-the-game shapes every control we apply — we only ship what we trust to run on our own infrastructure.
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Layered, Not Single-Point
Edge (Cloudflare) plus email auth plus application-layer encryption plus secrets hardening plus API signing plus monitoring. Each layer catches what the previous one misses. Single-control solutions leave gaps.
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No Plugin Sprawl to Patch
We build on lean MVC PHP — no WordPress plugin chain to audit, no dependency cascade of third-party bloat. Smaller attack surface from day one. When we harden an existing stack, we audit what is actually running, not just what you think is running.
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Dependency and Config Audit Included
We look at your third-party libraries, composer or npm dependencies, and server config. Known-vulnerable or over-permissioned items are flagged in the hardening report. Critical items are fixed in-scope.
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Fixed Scope, Documented Output
You receive a hardening report at delivery documenting every control applied, every permission changed, and every open finding with remediation priority. No ambiguity about what was done.
From Kickoff to Hardened in Under a Week
A fixed, sequenced engagement. No open-ended retainer required to get secure.
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Discovery + Surface Audit (Day 1)
We review your stack, hosting environment, existing DNS records, API surface, secrets management, and form exposure points. This generates the priority list that drives the entire engagement.
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Edge + DNS Layer (Days 2–3)
Cloudflare WAF rules activated and tuned. Turnstile deployed on all public forms. DKIM, SPF, and DMARC DNS records set, propagated, and validated against live mail tests.
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Application + Secrets Layer (Days 3–5)
AES-256-GCM encryption wired for all credentials and third-party secrets. .env file permissions locked to mode 600. HMAC signing added to API endpoints. Rate limits configured per endpoint.
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Dependency + Config Audit (Day 5)
Full sweep of third-party libraries and server config. Critical flagged items fixed in-scope. Everything else documented in the remediation list with severity and recommended timeline.
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Monitor Onboarding + Handoff (Days 6–7)
HLD OPS Monitor connected and alerting active. You receive the complete hardening report. A 14-day post-delivery support window covers anything that surfaces directly from the changes made.
What clients ask about Security & Compliance
The one-time hardening engagement includes Cloudflare WAF and Turnstile configuration, DKIM/SPF/DMARC DNS setup and validation, AES-256-GCM secrets encryption, .env permission hardening, HMAC-signed API endpoints, rate limiting, a dependency and config audit, and HLD OPS Monitor onboarding with three months of included uptime alerting. Complex stacks or sites with large API surfaces may be quoted higher — we scope and confirm the price before we invoice anything.
The 0 is a one-time fee. HLD OPS Monitor alerting is included for the first three months. After that, continued monitoring can be retained separately — we will quote it at handoff so there are no surprises. Your Cloudflare plan and DNS hosting are billed directly by those providers and are not included in our fee.
Yes. WordPress engagements include a plugin dependency audit and hardened wp-config.php alongside the standard controls. The edge, email auth, and monitoring layers apply to any stack. We tell you upfront if something in your environment limits what is achievable — we do not oversell scope.
Most breaches are quiet. Scraped form data, harvested credentials, spoofed email domains that erode deliverability over months. By the time something is visibly broken, the damage is done. These controls also have direct performance side effects: stopping bot traffic reduces server load, and proper DMARC improves transactional email deliverability immediately.
Yes. Individual control layers can be scoped and priced separately. A DKIM/SPF/DMARC-only engagement starts at 0. Contact us and we will scope the specific layers you need without selling you the full package if you do not need it.
We document every change made during the engagement. If a control causes an unexpected conflict in your environment, we fix it within the 14-day post-delivery support window at no additional charge. After that window, fixes are available at our standard hourly rate.
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