Security is the top most concern for any WordPress user. Although WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS), it still needs to go a long way as far as security is concerned.
In fact, hackers have been a major threat to the WordPress platform.
Let’s have a look at what hackers can do to your WordPress site.
It has been seen that hackers can break into a WordPress site by successfully guessing the admin password.
This is the least you want to happen with your WordPress site.
Well, the possibility of hackers accessing your WordPress Admin Area is always lurking around the corner.
One fine day, you may find out that your WordPress site has been attacked and accessed by hackers.
It is a threat which can unmask itself any day.
And there are valid reasons for saying so.
Let’s look at the security hole which makes WordPress so vulnerable and easy to attack for hackers.
By default, WordPress allows users for keying in different passwords as many times as they want to login to the WordPress dashboard or Admin Area.
So, users get unlimited login attempts in WordPress.
Why you need WordPress login lockdown or Limit Login Attempts in WordPress?
Well, if you see from a security point of view, the WordPress functionality allowing users to enter passwords as many times as they want for getting a successful login is, in fact, a security flaw.
It’s, in fact, a big security flaw.
Well, on the one hand, there is no problem in giving such type of liberty for login to genuine users, but what about hackers.
They are in for a real treat.
With such liberty at their disposal, hackers get the freedom to guess the password and break into your WordPress Admin Section. Moreover, as there is no limit to login attempts, hackers can go on and on until they successfully login to your WordPress site.
Hackers go on to exploit this feature as they try to access your WordPress site using different password combinations until your website cracks.
So, your WordPress site is utterly vulnerable and available for hackers unless you employ WordPress login lockdown or limit login attempts in your WordPress.
It calls for limiting login attempts in WordPress.
In fact, you need to limit the number of failed login attempts for every user.
For example, lock out a user after 3 failed attempts.
So, if someone has more than 3 failed attempts to login, then you should have a mechanism which blocks such IP for a temporary period.
Doing so is necessary if you want to protect your WordPress site from falling into the hands of hackers.
If hackers can login to your WordPress site, they can virtually do anything they like.
So, to prevent hackers and deny them the freedom to access your WordPress site you have to implement WordPress login lockdown or limit login attempts in WordPress.
How to Limit Login Attempts in WordPress?
The WordPress vulnerability to hackers might scare you a lot.
However, by using a limit login attempts plugin, you can easily protect your WordPress site from being attacked by hackers.
It is an effective way to implement WordPress login lockdown.
Login Lockdown is one such powerful, potent, and popular WordPress plugin which limits the number of login attempts from a given IP range within a certain period.
Firstly, you have to install and activate the Login Lockdown Plugin. Once it is activated, you need to visit Settings >> Login Lockdown page for configuring the plugin settings.
The plugin allows you to define how many login attempts can be made by a user. You can also set the period until which they cannot retry if they go on to exceed the failed attempts. The default lockout period for IP blocks is 60 minutes. However, this can be adjusted as per your requirements.
By default, the Login Lockdown Plugin does not restrict users to enter and try different invalid usernames. However, with “Lockout Invalid Usernames” option you can stop users from trying different invalid usernames. To enable this feature, you simply have to click on “Yes” under Lockout Invalid Usernames and stop this.
In WordPress, the users come to know whether they entered an invalid username or password on failed logins. However, the Login Lockdown Plugin has the feature which enables you to hide this. For this, you have to click on “Yes” under mask login errors option.
Once you have enabled the features and done with the settings in the Login Lockdown Plugin, you have to click on the Update Settings button for saving your changes.
Apart from using Login Lockdown Plugin, you should always have strong passwords for your WordPress site. As strong passwords are difficult to guess and remember, it makes life tough for hackers who are always devising new ways to break open into your WordPress site.
Plus, you should always keep complete backups of your WordPress site. We also recommend adding a firewall which can effectively nullify brute-force attacks and so much more.
By default, your WordPress site is utterly vulnerable and allows hackers to make unlimited login attempts. So, it is important to limit login attempts in WordPress so that hackers are not able to access your site. By using Login Lockdown Plugin, you can easily limit login attempts in WordPress.
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