If you have a WordPress website, chances are bots are trying to log into it nearly constantly. We love to use the plugin Login Attempts Reloaded on every site we build so that these bots and bad actors get blocked before they can make enough attempts to break into the website.
If you aren’t familiar with these hack attempts, bots try to brute force login into your website with common passwords to insert malicious code or access your server. Once they are in, they can send spam emails, redirect your website to theirs, or wreak havoc.
One simple feature of the plugin besides stopping harmful login attempts is that it displays a simple counter for how many failed attempts there have been in the past day. Yesterday, I looked through some websites we have access to that are running Login Attempts Reloaded and noticed that several of them have been experiencing over 100 failed attempts daily!
Then I had to sign in to this website, theskyfloor.com. And on the dashboard was the widget with failed login attempts with a big, fat 0. What’s more, is that the chart also showed zero tries every day before that. The big difference between our website and the other one I was looking at is Cloudflare.
According to their website, Cloudflare is a global network designed to make everything you connect to the Internet secure, private, fast, and reliable. In the case of this website, their product improves site speed and, most importantly, checks every visit to the login screen for unusual or known bot activity. It works! Since we started using Cloudflare enterprise, we have had no failed login attempts.
This result is consistent across the board. Every site we manage that is on Cloudflare has 0 attempts. Every website not utilizing their service gets many. It is still essential to use a tool like Login Attempts Reloaded just in case, but Cloudflare is so good at its job that LAR becomes a backup instead of a primary defense. For peace of mind, think about implementing a tool like Cloudflare as your first line of defense!
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Takeaway:
If you are experiencing high loads of attempted logins to your site, it is likely slowing it down and putting it at risk of being compromised. Consider installing Login Attempts Reloaded and getting set up on Cloudflare too. If you don’t know where to start, reach out to us here: Start Now.
