Blobfolio

Apocalypse Meow’s main focus is addressing WordPress security issues related to user accounts and logins. This includes things like:
<ul>
<li>Brute-force login-in protection;</li>
<li>Customizable password strength requirements;</li>
<li>XML-RPC access controls;</li>
<li>Account access alerts;</li>
<li>Searchable access logs (including failed login attempts and temporary bans);</li>
<li>User enumeration prevention;</li>
<li>Registration SPAM protection;</li>
<li>Miscellaneous Core and template options to make targeted hacks more difficult;</li>
<li>Anonymize/scrub leaky remote request headers;</li>
</ul>
Security is an admittedly technical subject, but Apocalypse Meow strives to help educate “normal” users about the nature of common web attacks, mitigation techniques, etc. Every option contains detailed explanations and links to external resources with additional information.
Knowledge is power!
<h3>Requirements</h3>
Due to the advanced nature of some of the plugin features, there are a few additional server requirements beyond what WordPress itself requires:
<ul>
<li>WordPress 4.4+.</li>
<li>PHP 7.3 or later.</li>
<li>PHP extensions: (bcmath or gmp), date, filter, json, pcre.</li>
<li><code>CREATE</code> and <code>DROP</code> MySQL grants.</li>
<li>Single-site Installs (i.e. Multi-Site is not supported).</li>
</ul>
Please note: it is not safe to run WordPress atop a version of PHP that has reached its <a href="http://php.net/supported-versions.php" rel="nofollow ugc">End of Life</a>. Future releases of this plugin might, out of necessity, drop support for old, unmaintained versions of PHP. To ensure you continue to receive plugin updates, bug fixes, and new features, just make sure PHP is kept up-to-date. 🙂
<h3>Log Monitoring</h3>
Some robots are so dumb they’ll continue trying to submit credentials even after the login form is replaced, wasting system resources and clogging up the log-in history table. One way to mitigate this is to use a server-side log-monitoring program like <a href="http://www.fail2ban.org/" rel="nofollow ugc">Fail2Ban</a> or <a href="https://ossec.github.io/" rel="nofollow ugc">OSSEC</a> to ban users via the firewall.
Apocalypse Meow produces a 403 error when a banned user requests the login form. Your log-monitoring rule should therefore look for repeated 403 responses to <code>wp-login.php</code>. Additionally, some robots are unable to follow redirects; if your login form requires SSL, you should also ban repeated 301/302 responses to catch those fools.
If you have enabled user enumeration protection with the <code>die()</code> option, requests for <code>?author=X</code> will produce a 400 response code which can be similarly tracked.
<h3>Privacy Policy</h3>
When active, this plugin retains security logs of every sign-in attempt made to the CMS backend. This information — including the end user’s public IP address, username, and the status of his or her attempt — is used to help prevent unauthorized system access and maintain Quality of Service for all site visitors.
This information resides fully on the hosting web site and is not shared with any third parties.
Data retention is entirely up to the site operator, but by default old records are automatically removed after 90 days.
Please note: Apocalypse Meow DOES NOT integrate with any WordPress GDPR “Personal Data” features. (Selective erasure of audit logs would undermine the security mechanisms provided by this plugin. Haha.)

Apocalypse Meow

Works nicely to protect from brute force logins, and the developer is fantastic!

great protection

A simple, light-weight collection of tools to harden WordPress security and help mitigate common types of attacks.

Julio Potier

Grégory Viguier

SecuPress

superment

<h4>Move Your Login Page</h4>
Tired of bots finding your WordPress login page? SP Move Login allows you to change your login URL to protect it from automated attacks and brute force attempts.
This plugin contains the Move Login module from <a href="https://secupress.me/" rel="nofollow ugc">SecuPress</a>, a comprehensive WordPress security plugin. While this plugin focuses solely on moving your login page, the full SecuPress version includes many other security features such as:
Why move your login page?
By default, WordPress login pages are located at <code>/wp-login.php</code> and <code>/wp-admin/</code>, making them easy targets for bots and attackers. SP Move Login allows you to:
<ul>
<li>Change your login URL to a custom slug</li>
<li>Protect your registration page (if enabled)</li>
<li>Block access to the default login pages</li>
<li>Display custom error messages or redirect to a custom page when someone tries to access the old login URL</li>
</ul>
Features:
<ul>
<li>Simple and easy to use</li>
<li>Change your login URL with just a few clicks</li>
<li>Works with pretty permalinks</li>
<li>Compatible with multisite installations (includes Single Sign-On support)</li>
<li>Custom error messages for blocked access</li>
<li>Redirect to custom page option</li>
<li>Lightweight – focused solely on moving your login page</li>
</ul>
Note: This plugin requires pretty permalinks to be enabled. You can activate them in Settings > Permalinks.
For more advanced security features, check out the <a href="https://secupress.me/" rel="nofollow ugc">full SecuPress version</a>.

SP Move Login

Don't know why I didn't find "Move Login" first. I already tested 2 alternative free plugins and it was deficient in different ways.  "Move Login" is powerful, light and easy to set up. Very nice find. Thanks.

The best of the 3 ones I tested

Move your WordPress login page to protect it from bots. This plugin contains the Move Login module from SecuPress. Other security modules are availabl …

Apocalypse Meow vs SP Move Login