Title: Help foiling bot attacks
Last modified: August 30, 2016

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# Help foiling bot attacks

 *  [theblackwidower](https://wordpress.org/support/users/theblackwidower/)
 * (@theblackwidower)
 * [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/help-foiling-bot-attacks/)
 * Over the past few days I’ve been getting a barrage of alerts regarding login 
   attempts, and lockouts.
 * It seems as if some botnet is attacking the site by attempting to login using
   the ‘admin’ username (which doesn’t exist, by the way). Of course, any attempt
   to do so results in an instant ban.
 * So far, since midnight today, I’ve received 108 emails related to that, and it’s
   only 5:00 pm.
 * Anyway, in response to this, I decided to implement a CAPTCHA plug-in. In fact,
   I tried quite a few, and none of them seem to work because I keep getting the
   same alerts.
 * My question is this: Given that iThemes automatically blocks any attempts to 
   login with the ‘admin’ username, would it also check the CAPTCHA? Or does it 
   just check the username, see it’s ‘admin’ and immediately block without even 
   looking at the CAPTCHA?
 * I ask because if the CAPTCHA is working, and iThemes isn’t even checking it, 
   I have no way of finding out.
 * By the way, I know I can disable the alerts. I have no problem with the alerts.
   I’m glad I’m getting the alerts. I just want to stop the attacks.
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security/)

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

 *  [B13story](https://wordpress.org/support/users/b13story/)
 * (@b13story)
 * [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/help-foiling-bot-attacks/#post-6324781)
 * Me too I got the alerts just to tell me that iThemes Sec is doing the job.
    The
   problem aren’t the alerts but actually is that I set iThemes Security to immediately
   block all logins with “admin” username since then there’s no IP has been blocked
   only lockouts which doesn’t seem to stop this botnet from coming back after releasing
   lockout.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

The topic ‘Help foiling bot attacks’ is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://ps.w.org/better-wp-security/assets/icon.svg?rev=3529351)
 * [Kadence Security – Password, Two Factor Authentication, and Brute Force Protection](https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security/)
 * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security/#faq)
 * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/better-wp-security/)
 * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/better-wp-security/active/)
 * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/better-wp-security/unresolved/)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/better-wp-security/reviews/)

## Tags

 * [brute force attacks](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/brute-force-attacks/)

 * 1 reply
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [B13story](https://wordpress.org/support/users/b13story/)
 * Last activity: [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/help-foiling-bot-attacks/#post-6324781)
 * Status: not resolved