Login Security Solution

Before installing this plugin, read the FAQ!

If your WP install is behind a proxy or load balancer, please be aware that this plugin uses the REMOTE_ADDR provided by the web server (as does WordPress’ new comment functionality and the Akismet plugin). If you want our brute force tracking to work, we advise adjusting your wp-config.php file to manually set the REMOTE_ADDR to a data source appropriate for your environment. For example:

$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] = preg_replace('/^([^,]+).*$/', '\1', $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']);

Download the Login Security Solution zip file from WordPress’ plugin site: https://wordpress.org/plugins/login-security-solution/

Unzip the file.

Our existing tests are very effective, catching all of the 2 million entries in the Dazzlepod password list. But if you need to block specific passwords that my tests miss, this plugin offers the ability to provide your own dictionary files.

Add a file to the pw_dictionaries directory and place those passwords in it. One password per line.

Please be aware that checking the password files is computationally expensive. The following script runs through each of the password files and weeds out passwords caught by the other tests:

php utilities/reduce-dictionary-files.php

If your website has a large number of non-English-speaking users:

• See if a keyboard sequence file exists in this plugin’s pw_sequences directory for your target languages. The following steps are for left-to-right languages. (For right-to-left languages, flip the direction of the motions indicated.) Open a text editor and create a file in the pw_sequences directory
• Hold down the shift key
• Press the top left character key of the keyboard. NOTE: during this entire process, do not press function, control or whitespace keys (like tab, enter, delete, arrows, space, etc).
• Work your way across the top row, pressing each key across the row, one by one
• Press the left-most character key in the second row
• Go across the second row pressing each key
• Continue through the entire keyboard in the same manner
• Let go of the shift key
• Re-start the process at the top left key of the keyboard and work your way through the keyboard, now in lower-case mode
• Save the file and close the editor
• Feel free to submit the files to me so others can use it. See the features request section, below.

If a translation file for your language does not exist in this plugin’s languages directory, add one. Read https://codex.wordpress.org/I18n_for_WordPress_Developers for details. The files must use UTF-8 encoding. Send me the file and I’ll include it in future releases. See the features request section, below.

The last step of the new password validation process is checking if the password matches an entry in the dict program. See if dict is installed on your server and consider installing it if not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dict

Upload the login-security-solution directory to your server’s /wp-content/plugins/ directory

Activate the plugin using WordPress’ admin interface:

• Regular sites: Plugins
• Sites using multisite networks: My Sites | Network Admin | Plugins

Adjust the settings as desired. This plugin’s settings page can be reached via a sub-menu entry under WordPress’ “Settings” menu or this plugin’s entry on WordPress’ “Plugins” page. Sites using WordPress’ multisite network capability will find the “Settings” and “Plugin” menus under “My Sites | Network Admin”.

Run the “Change All Passwords” process. This is necessary to ensure all of your users have strong passwords. The user interface for doing so is accessible via a link in this plugin’s entry on WordPress’ “Plugins” page.

Ensure your password strength by changing it.

Login Security Solution provides hooks in critical methods, allowing you to add custom behaviors.

Better WP Security : Their “Enable Login Limits” and “Enable strong password enforcement” functionality conflict with our features. The good news is we provide more robust protection in those areas and the Better WP Security “Settings” page lets you disable those features in their plugin. This way you get to enjoy even better security than either plugin alone.

The WordPress installation process (currently) defaults to having the main administrator’s user’s name be “admin.” Many people don’t change it. Attackers know this, so now all they need to do to get into such sites is guess the password.

In addition, if you try to log in while your site is being attacked, this plugin will send you through the password reset process in order to verify your identity. While not the end of the world, it’s inconvenient.

A link to the page is found in this plugin’s entry in the “Plugins” admin interface:

• Regular sites: Plugins
• Sites using multisite networks: My Sites | Network Admin | Plugins

Let’s turn the question around: “How long did it take to get in those 500 hits?” Chances are it took hours. (Six hours if they’re attacking with one thread, 2 hours if they’re coming at you with three threads, etc.) If this plugin wasn’t working, they’d have pulled it off under a minute. Similarly, without the slowed responses this plugin provides, an attacker given six hours against your site could probably get in over 170,000 hits.

Anyway, my real question for you is “Did they get in?” I’ll bet not. The strong passwords this plugin requires from your users lowers the chances of someone breaking in to just about zero.

And even if they do get lucky and figure out a password, Login Security Solution realizes they’re miscreants and kicks them out.

If you look at it the right way, Login Security Solution provides lockouts (where “lockout” means “denies access” to attackers.) Below is a comparison of the attack handling logic used by Limit Login Attempts and Login Security Solution.

Limit Login Attempts

• Invalid or Valid Credentials by Attacker or Actual User Process authentication request (check IP address)
• Error message: “Too many failed login attempts.” (ACCESS DENIED.)

Note, this approach means an actual user can be denied access for 12 hours after making 4 mistakes.

Login Security Solution

• Invalid Credentials by Attacker or Actual User Process authentication request (check IP, user name, and password)
• Slow down the response
• Error message: “Incorrect username or password.” (ACCESS DENIED.)
• Valid Credentials by Attacker Process authentication request (check IP, user name, and password)
• Slow down the response
• Set force password change flag for user
• Error message: “Your password must be reset. Please submit this form to reset it.” (ACCESS DENIED.)
• Valid Credentials by Actual User Process authentication request (check IP, user name, and password)
• (If user is coming from their verified IP address, let them in, END)
• Slow down the response
• Error message: “Your password must be reset. Please submit this form to reset it.” (ACCESS DENIED.)
• On subsequent request… user verifies their identity via password reset process
• User’s IP address is added to their verified IP list for future reference

So both plugins deny access to attackers. But Login Security Solution has the bonuses of letting legitimate users log in and slowing the attacks down. Plus LSS monitors user names, passwords, and IP’s for attacks, while all of the other plugins just watch the IP address.

Yeah, the DOS potential is there. I mitigated it for the most part by disconnecting the database link (the most precious resource in most situations) before sleeping. But remember, distributed denial of service attacks are fairly easy to initiate these days. If someone really wants to shut down your site, they’ll be able to do it without even touching this plugin’s login failure process.

Development of this plugin happens on GitHub . Please submit bug and feature requests , pull requests , wiki entries on our GitHub.

Do not commit the .mo files! They get created as part of the release process. Translation commits and pull requests should only touch the .po file. If you have other changes you wish to see made, please do so via separate commits in separate pull requests. When translating a new feature, please make that one commit. If other parts of the translation need updating, please make them in a separate commit. Please don’t change formatting inside the .po file Run git diff before all commits. Ensure only expected changes are being made. Do NOT translate items that have a comment above them saying Translation from WordPress. DO NOT TRANSLATE IT IN THIS PLUGIN. When starting a new translation, please take a look at an existing .po file to see which strings they are. Those phrases are already translated in WordPress’ core. Leaving them untranslated here ensures consistency with the rest of WordPress. To start a new translation:

cd languages

cp login-security-solution.pot login-security-solution-lc_CC.po

To update the .pot file:

1. 01WordPress’ makepot utility directory should be in the same directory as the login-security-solution directory. If you don’t have this setup, here’s what to do: cd into the directory above this one.
2. 02svn checkout https://i18n.svn.wordpress.org/tools/trunk/ makepot
3. 03So, now you’ll have: parent dir |- login-security-solution/ |- makepot/
4. 04cd login-security-solution/languages
5. 05./makepot.sh

Then, bringing the .po files up to date is as easy as:

1. 06./updatepos.sh

Finally, to update the .mo files for testing or release:

1. 07./makemos.sh