Title: Plugin exploited? Last modified: August 21, 2016 --- # Plugin exploited? * Resolved [Stephen](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sboltonjr/) * (@sboltonjr) * [13 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-exploited/) * Trying to figure out why the plugin randomly blocked us out. When I delete plugin, reinstall, I go to the settings page and try to whitelist my IP but it gives me an error saying it can not update IP. We log into the site with our facebook accounts so there is no reason the block I have set should block me and another administrator out. * [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/botnet-attack-blocker/](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/botnet-attack-blocker/) Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total) * Plugin Author [cheesefather](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cheesefather/) * (@cheesefather) * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-exploited/#post-3774279) * Hi, I haven’t heard of this happening to anyone else, it’s possible that someone was trying to log into your site at the same time as you and locked you out. * Was the error “update failed” or another error? What did you have in the IP field? * Thanks. * Thread Starter [Stephen](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sboltonjr/) * (@sboltonjr) * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-exploited/#post-3774282) * The IP field was my own IP address. I just have decided to take the plugin off the sites I installed it on, as wordfence helps me track potential hackers/bots. It happened on another website of mine a few days ago where I was locked out by someone attempting to bruteforce the admin (which on that site I do not have have a user with admin as I used a different login). * The error just said update failed when I input my ip address on the settings page. I had deactivated the plugin, and reactivated it, and then tried the settings page but that is what happened so I rendered it not usable for the time being. * If there is anything you’d like me to do or provide, then let me know, unless it’s just user error not knowing that it locks out everyone from accessing the site when a bot or person tries logging in with a useless bruteforce attack. * Plugin Author [cheesefather](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cheesefather/) * (@cheesefather) * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-exploited/#post-3774283) * It does indeed block everyone from logging in (to prevent distributed botnet attacks that come from hundreds of different IPs at the same time) irrelevant of usernames or IPs – it sounds like that’s not what you were expecting it to do! * However, you still should’ve been able to update the settings in the database. It’s very standard WP code to create and update the settings and I can’t recreate your issue at all. I’ll keep trying 🙁 * Thread Starter [Stephen](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sboltonjr/) * (@sboltonjr) * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-exploited/#post-3774284) * What happened was I had gotten blocked, then I had simply removed the plugin off the server via FTP. Then I was able to log back into wordpress, reinstall the plugin. Went to settings page, put my ip address in, clicked update and then it gave me the error I mentioned. * When I get the time I’ll try it out again, however are there any tables in the database that I can try to remove completely to start fresh? Have not checked to see what it may be called as I was going to wipe it. * Plugin Author [cheesefather](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cheesefather/) * (@cheesefather) * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-exploited/#post-3774285) * In the wordpress options table (usually wp_options) there’s a field created called bab_options which contains the array of settings. Sounds like it may have prevented the update as you were locked out at the time – I’d have to check the code. * Thread Starter [Stephen](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sboltonjr/) * (@sboltonjr) * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-exploited/#post-3774286) * Yeah your plugin doesn’t have a way to uninstall any table settings. That might help for those that uninstall or have issues. * Plugin Author [cheesefather](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cheesefather/) * (@cheesefather) * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-exploited/#post-3774298) * Thanks, I’ll add that to the roadmap. Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total) The topic ‘Plugin exploited?’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://s.w.org/plugins/geopattern-icon/botnet-attack-blocker.svg) * [Botnet Attack Blocker](https://wordpress.org/plugins/botnet-attack-blocker/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/botnet-attack-blocker/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/botnet-attack-blocker/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/botnet-attack-blocker/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/botnet-attack-blocker/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/botnet-attack-blocker/reviews/) * 7 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [cheesefather](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cheesefather/) * Last activity: [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-exploited/#post-3774298) * Status: resolved