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 7.4 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.

Joomla Service Provider

The wSecure plugin hides admin URL so that “www.yoursite.com/wp-admin” will no longer 
bring up the admin page. Instead, wSecure allows you to set your own admin URL using a secret key 
(for example: www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/?secret). Only people who enter the secret key will be able to 
access your admin area.
Features: 
The Basic Version will hide your administrator URL from public access. This is the feature that most people need.
Basic Configuration
<ul>
<li>Set “Enable” to “yes” in order for wSecure to work.</li>
<li>The “Pass Key” field allows admin to select the mode in which admin can enter the “Secret Key” to access the WordPress admin login page. Possible options are directly through “url” or a separate “form” asking to enter the secure key. </li>
<li>In the “Key” field enter the key that will be part of your new administrator URL. For example, 
 if you enter “wSecure” into the key field, then the administrator URL will be http://www.yourwebsite/wp-admin/?wSecure </li>
<li>If you do not enter a key, but enable the wSecure plugin, then the default URL to access the administrator area is /?wSecure 
 (http://www.yourwebsite/wp-admin/?wSecure)</li>
<li>Set the “Redirect Options” field. By default, if someone tries to access you /wp-admin URL without the correct key, they will be redirected to the home page of your WordPress site. You can also set up a “Custom Path” is you would like the user to be redirected somewhere else, such as a 404 error page.</li>
<li>Set “Captcha Status” to “yes” to enable Google reCaptcha on WordPress Admin Form.</li>
<li>In Re-Captcha Secret Key textbox enter secret key value.</li>
<li>In Re-Captcha Site Key textbox enter site key value.</li>
<li>Click on the save button to make changes.</li>
</ul>
Admin Protection
<ul>
<li>In Admin Protection Tab Set “Enable Admin Password Protection” to “yes” to enable .htaccess protection to WordPress Admin Folder.</li>
<li>In Admin Username textbox enter username.</li>
<li>In Admin Password textbox enter password.</li>
<li>In Verify Password textbox enter password again.</li>
<li>Click on the save button to make changes.</li>
</ul>
The <a href="http://www.joomlaserviceprovider.com/extensions/WordPress/commercial/wsecure-authentication.html" title="Click here to download advanced version" rel="nofollow ugc">Advanced version</a> has additional features that you can have.
<ul>
<li>Mail tab: This sets whether you want an email to be sent every time there is a failed login attempt into the WordPress administration area. You can set it to send the wSecure key or the incorrect key that was entered.</li>
<li>IP tab: This tab allows you to control which IPs have access to your admin URL.</li>
<li>White Listed IPs: If set to “White Listed IPs” you can make a white list for certain IPs. Only those specific IPS will be allowed to access your admin URL.</li>
<li>Blocked IPs: If set to “Blocked IPs” you can block certain IPs from accessing your admin URL.</li>
<li>Master Password: You can block access to the wSecure component from other administrators. 
Setting to “Yes”, allows you to create a password that will be required when any administrator tries to access the wSecure configuration settings in the WordPress administration area..</li>
<li>Master Mail: These setting allow you to have an email sent every time the wSecure configuration is changed.</li>
<li>Log: This setting allows you to decide how long the wSecure logs should remain in the database.</li>
</ul>

wSecure Lite

wSecure hides admin URL so that default URL will no longer bring up the admin page. Only people who enter the secret key will be able to access admin  …

Apocalypse Meow vs wSecure Lite