There is a worldwide, highly-distributed WordPress attack that is currently ongoing. This attack is known to be using forged or spoofed IP addresses. We are working actively to mitigate the effect of these attacks but you would have to take the following to secure (by password protection) wp-login.php for all WordPress sites in your cPanel account:
Password Protect the wp-login.php File
There are two (2) steps in accomplishing this. First you need to define a password in the .wpadmin file, and then you activate the security in the .htaccess file.
Step 1: Create the Password File
Create a file named .wpadmin and place it in your home directory, where visitors can't access it. (Please note there is a period preceding the wpadmin in that file name.) The following example is for cPanel. Plesk would require placing the file in /var/www/vhosts or /var/www/vhosts/domain.
EXAMPLE: /home/username/.wpadmin
(where "username" is the cPanel username for the account.)
Put the username and encrypted password inside the .wpadmin file, using the format username:encryptedpassword
EXAMPLE: john:n5MfEoHOIQkKg
(where "john" is a username of your choice, and the password shown is encrypted.)
Generate Password File & Uploading Via File Manager
You may generate the file using the website linked below, and then upload it to your site via FTP or File Manager. In the directions below, we will use File Manager, but you could use FTP instead, for those of you familiar with FTP.
- Visit: http://www.htaccesstools.com/htpasswd-generator/
- Use the form to create the username and password.
- Login to cPanel in another window or tab.
- Click on File Manager.
- Select Home Directory.
- Check Show Hidden Files (dotfiles) if not already checked.
- Click on the Go button.
- Look for a .wpadmin file.
- If one exists, right click on it and select Code Edit to open the editor. Click on the Edit button to edit the file.
- If one does not exist, click on New File at the top of the page, and specify the name as .wpadmin (with the dot at the front) and click on the Create New File button. - Paste the code provided from the website in step 2.
- Click on the Save Changes button when complete.
- You can Close the file when finished.
Step 2: Update the .htaccess File
All domains under the home directory will share the common .wpadmin file.
The last step is to place the following code in the /home/username/.htaccess file:
ErrorDocument 401 "Unauthorized Access"
ErrorDocument 403 "Forbidden"
<FilesMatch "wp-login.php">
AuthName "Authorized Only"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/username/.wpadmin
require valid-user
</FilesMatch>
Note: replace "username" above with your cPanel username
