WP Login Lockdown: guide & review

The backend login page is, like any other door, the primary target for brute-force attacks on a WordPress site. Since all WordPress installations share the same login URL (e.g., mysite.com/wp-admin/), hackers deploy bots that systematically scan for this address and then attempt to log in using common (or not-so-common) usernames and passwords to gain control of the site.

WP Login Lockdown is the plugin that steps in to shield your website with several tricks up its sleeve. In this guide, we’ll show you how to make the most of it and keep your site safe from these digital intruders.

What is WP Login Lockdown?

WP Login Lockdown is a WordPress plugin focused entirely on securing the backend login page (wp-admin). It offers two major advantages.

First, it limits the number of failed login attempts from a specific IP address. This prevents brute-force attacks because after three failed attempts (or any limit you define), the user or bot gets blocked based on their internet identifier (IP).

Second, and just as crucial, WP Login Lockdown allows you to change the default login URL. Instead of /wp-admin/, you can set a custom path, like mysite.com/secretdoor/ effectively making mysite.com/wp-admin/ nonexistent.

We’ll dive into these features and more in the sections ahead.

WP Login Lockdown: Key Features

WP Login Lockdown offers a range of features that make it the go-to tool for securing your WordPress site with just a few clicks.

Intuitive Interface

Everything is clearly laid out, making it easy to understand what each setting does and why it matters. You can quickly decide whether to use the default configurations or tweak them to suit your needs.

Login Attempt Limit

By default, WordPress allows unlimited login attempts—something hackers exploit. WP Login Lockdown lets you set a limit, blocking the attacker’s IP after exceeding the allowed number of failed attempts.

Lockout Duration

WP Login Lockdown lets you customize how long an IP remains blocked after exceeding the login attempt limit. This prevents attackers from continuously guessing passwords and increases site security.

Whitelist & Blacklist IPs

You can manually add IP addresses to a whitelist (trusted) or blacklist (permanently blocked). Whitelisted IPs will never be locked out, even if they exceed the login attempt limit, while blacklisted IPs are denied access entirely.

Email Notifications

Suspicious or malicious login attempts aren’t just logged—they’re also sent as email alerts to your preferred inbox, keeping you informed in real time.

Custom Lockout Message

WP Login Lockdown allows you to personalize the message displayed when an IP is blocked. This can serve as a warning to hackers while informing legitimate users that their access has been temporarily restricted.

Quick Guide to WP Login Lockdown

Below, we’ve included two annotated screenshots of WP Login Lockdown, with highlights on each feature for easy understanding. These visuals will help you configure both basic and advanced security settings with ease. Clicking on the images will open them in full screen.

WP Login Lockdown PRO is included for free in our WordPress Maintenance Plan

The Tools section also offers several functions that can be quite useful.

The first option, Email Test, ensures that we can successfully receive emails from the plugin through our WordPress (let’s remember that WP Login Lockdown reports are sent via email if we choose to enable this feature).

Recovery URL is a secret address (known only to us) that allows access to the WordPress Back-End in case we accidentally lock ourselves out due to multiple failed login attempts.

Finally, Import and Export performs the typical functions of these plugins, allowing us to import and export all settings —either to transfer them to another site we own or to keep a backup.

Under the Activity tab, as we can infer, we’ll find a complete log of all invalid login attempts, along with the IPs that were blocked.

As for the Firewall section, it includes some more advanced settings that we don’t recommend modifying. We believe the first two configurations are more than enough to keep our site protected. Therefore, we should only customize the options under the Firewall tab if we fully understand what we’re doing.

Big ‘Yes!’: through the Country Blocking tab it is possible to block entirely one or more countries.

WP Login Lockdown is a close ally of web design. Honestly, it offers more customization options than most of the plugins we’ve analyzed throughout FastWeb’s history. As shown in the screenshot above, if we want to tweak any aspect of the tool (or the login page itself), we have complete freedom to do so.

In the above screenshot, we can see the Temp Access tool, which can be extremely useful in specific situations. This feature allows us to create a temporary web address to share with third parties while setting its expiration time. It can last for an hour, a day, 15 days, a month, or even a year—however long we need. Once the set time expires, the link to the back-end access becomes invalid.

What are the differences between the free and paid versions?

As always, free versions of plugins keep the more advanced features reserved for their PRO edition. A comparison chart detailing the features included in each plan can be found here.

Final Thoughts

WP Login Lockdown is an excellent plugin for preventing attacks. It significantly enhances WordPress’ built-in security by restricting login attempts and blocking unauthorized access. Just as importantly, it also allows us to change the default URL of our back-end login form. In short, WP Login Lockdown provides multiple additional layers of protection against hackers and other malicious actors.

Its interface is user-friendly, and the settings are highly customizable. This plugin adapts to both basic and complex security needs. By limiting login attempts and blocking suspicious IP addresses, we effectively prevent intruders from gaining access to our site.

Thank you for reading! Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below. Wishing you success—let’s keep our content safe!