Question about blocking usernames

  • Resolved Ionna

    (@ionna)


    6 years, 8 months ago

    Quick, somewhat dumb question:

    My site uses usernames to login which are not tied to my real name, but those usernames are tied to email accounts that *do* use my real name.

    Thing is, I’ve been receiving notices of people trying to use my real name to log into my site, and Wordfence says they’ve registered 6 failed logins with an “existing” username aka my email address. So the scenario is something like this:

    Current WP login I use:

    Username: Admin123
    Email: [email protected]

    Failed logins:
    Invalid Username 1: real.name
    Invalid Username 2: [email protected]

    If I set “Immediately block the IP of users who try to sign in as these usernames” for Invalid username 2, will I be blocking myself out? Thanks!

    Edited: I am hosting a website with my real name on the same hosting, but this login scam is attacking the site that DOESN’T have my real name.

    • This topic was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Ionna. Reason: clarification
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  • Plugin Support wfscott

    (@wfscott)

    Hello @ionna,

    In my personal tests, blocking an email address has no effect. From what I saw, you will need to block specific usernames in order to get results. (I.e. real.name rather than [email protected])

    If you were to block “real.name”, you would block out any potential attacker who tries to login using that string.

    In any event, I believe that you would be safe in the scenario that you mentioned if you were to setup rules how you described, however, it seems you will only get results from the usernames.

    Let me know if you need anything else!

    -Scott

    Thread Starter Ionna

    (@ionna)

    Thanks for the clarification, Scott! Yeah, I’ve blocked the username already, just wanted to ensure I wasn’t going to block myself out. xD

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