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<p>A lightweight WordPress security plugin to prevent brute force attacks and disable XML-RPC.</p>
<h3>What can you do with WordShield?</h3>
<ul>
<li>Brute Force Protection</li>
<li>Disable XML-RPC API exploits</li>
<li>Change default Login URL  –<strong>Planned</strong></li>
<li>Add Security Headers –<strong>Planned</strong></li>
<li>Content Protection –<strong>Planned</strong></li>
<li>Login Security –<strong>Planned</strong></li>
<li>Hide Generator Tags</li>
<li>Disable PHP Editing</li>
</ul>
<h3>Future Roadmap</h3>
<ul>
<li>Stop user enumerations.</li>
<li>Request rate throttler.</li>
<li>Prevent comment spam.</li>
<li>IP Ban.</li>
<li>Prevent code execution.</li>
<li>2FA</li>
<li>Backup & Restore.</li>
<li>Support for multisite.</li>
<li>Logs, Notifications, and more!</li>
</ul>
<h3>Note:</h3>
<p>The current version of the WordShield Security plugin does not work in a multisite environment.</p>
<h3>Advantages of WordShield Security Plugin</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Lean Code—</strong> Unlike most other Security Plugins, WordShield focuses on the core functionalities and has zero bloat.</li>
<li><strong>Ultrafast—</strong> This lightweight plugin adds negligible overhead to your website. Each new release is tested for performance before making it available for general use. </li>
<li>It added only 0.004 seconds of execution time in our internal performance profiling tests.*</li>
<li><strong>Failsafe—</strong> This WordPress security plugin does not modify any core file. It does not alter the .htaccess file as well. With easy-to-use recovery options, you can be sure that your WordPress website <strong>will never break</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Best Practices—</strong> WordShield follows WordPress best practices and respects the coding standards.</li>
<li><strong>Maintenance & Support—</strong> WordShield has a planned roadmap for the future. It is well-supported and updated for compatibility with each WordPress upgrade.</li>
</ul>
<h3>How to Limit Login Attempts in WordPress?</h3>
<p>You can limit login attempts to your WordPress website using the WordShield security plugin. You can prevent Brute Force attacks with the following steps:</p>
<ul>
<li>Open the settings screen after installing and activating the plugin.</li>
<li>Navigate to the Brute Force tab on the settings screen.</li>
<li>Set the maximum number of invalid attempts you want to allow for each user.</li>
<li>Set the time (in minutes) you want to lock a user account after exceeding the maximum number of invalid attempts.</li>
<li>If you do not want to prevent Brute Force attacks, select 0 for both of these settings.</li>
<li>Save the settings.</li>
</ul>
<p>👉 The WordShield security plugin informs the user about the remaining retries before the account becomes locked.<br />
👉 If an account gets locked, WordShield informs the user about the time to wait before trying to log in again.<br />
👉 You can customize the default error messages in any language by keying in the message in the 2 optional fields.<br />
👉 Use %%MINUTES_LEFT%% to show the time in minutes in your custom message. Use %%ATTEMPTS_LEFT%% to show the number of retries left in your custom message.</p>
<h3>How to disable XML-RPC API exploits?</h3>
<p>XML-RPC is enabled by default in every WordPress installation. While XML-RPC is necessary for certain services and plugins like Jetpack, it can make websites vulnerable to remote code injection.</p>
<p>You can protect your website from the XML-RPC vulnerability as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Open the settings screen after installing and activating the plugin.</li>
<li>Navigate to the XML-RPC tab on the settings screen.</li>
<li>Check the Disable XML-RPC checkbox to disable XML-RPC completely.</li>
<li>If you are using JetPack, you can select the Enable Jetpack access so that the Jetpack plugin continues to work seamlessly.</li>
<li>If you need specific IPs to access XML-RPC API, key in the comma-separated list of IPs in the Whitelisted IPs field.</li>
<li>Save the settings.</li>
</ul>
<h3>How to Hide the Generator tags in WordPress?</h3>
<p>WordPress and WooCommerce generator tags let the potential attackers can easily identify the specific version of WordPress (or WooCommerce) you are using. This, in turn, exposes technical vulnerabilities thereby making your site more susceptible to hacking attempts.</p>
<p>You can hide the generator tags in WordPress by the following steps.</p>
<ul>
<li>Open the settings screen after installing and activating the plugin.</li>
<li>Navigate to the Extras tab on the settings screen.</li>
<li>Select the checkbox Remove Generator tags.</li>
<li>Save the settings.</li>
</ul>
<h3>How to disable PHP editing?</h3>
<p>You can disable PHP editing to prevent accidental changes in plugins and themes causing a complete system crash.</p>
<p>You can disable PHP editing with the following steps:</p>
<ul>
<li>Open the settings screen after installing and activating the plugin.</li>
<li>Navigate to the Extras tab on the settings screen.</li>
<li>Select the checkbox Disable PHP editing.</li>
<li>Select the checkbox Disable theme change if you want to hide the Appearance menu as well.</li>
<li>Save the settings.</li>
</ul>


WordPress Security Plugin – WordShield

A lightweight WordPress security plugin to prevent brute force attacks and disable XML-RPC.

Amin Nazemi

Neatma

<p>Protect your website from xmlrpc brute-force attacks,DOS and DDOS attacks, this plugin disables the XML-RPC and trackbacks-pingbacks on your WordPress website.</p>
<p><strong>PLUGIN FEATURES</strong><br />
(These are options you can enable or disable each one)</p>
<ul>
<li>Disable access to xmlrpc.php file using .httacess file </li>
<li>Automatically change htaccess file permission to read-only (0444)</li>
<li>Disable X-pingback to minimize CPU usage </li>
<li>Disable selected methods from XML-RPC</li>
<li>Remove pingback-ping link from header</li>
<li>Disable trackbacks and pingbacks to avoid spammers and hackers</li>
<li>Rename XML-RPC slug to whatever you want</li>
<li>Black list IPs for XML-RPC</li>
<li>White list IPs for XML-RPC</li>
<li>Some options to speed-up your wordpress website</li>
<li>Disable JSON REST API</li>
<li>Hide WordPress Version</li>
<li>Disable built-in WordPress file editor</li>
<li>Disable wlw manifest</li>
<li>And some other options</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>What is XMLRPC</strong></p>
<p>XML-RPC, or XML Remote Procedure Call is a protocol which uses XML to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism.<br />
Beginning in WordPress 3.5, XML-RPC is enabled by default. Additionally, the option to disable/enable XML-RPC was removed. For various reasons, site owners may wish to disable this functionality. This plugin provides an easy way to do so.</p>
<p><strong>Why you should disable XML-RPC</strong><br />
<em>Xmlrpc has two main weaknesses</em></p>
<ul>
<li>Brute force attacks:<br />
Attackers try to login to WordPress using xmlrpc.php with as many username/password combinations as they can enter. A method within xmlrpc.php allows the attacker to use a single command (system.multicall) to guess hundreds of passwords. Daniel Cid at Sucuri described it well in October 2015: “With only 3 or 4 HTTP requests, the attackers could try thousands of passwords, bypassing security tools that are designed to look and block brute force attempts.”</li>
<li>Denial of Service Attacks via Pingback:<br />
Back in 2013, attackers sent Pingback requests through xmlrpc.php of approximately 2500 WordPress sites to “herd (these sites) into a voluntary botnet,” according to Gur Schatz at Incapsula. “This gives any attacker a virtually limitless set of IP addresses to Distribute a Denial of Service attack across a network of over 100 million WordPress sites, without having to compromise them.”</li>
</ul>


Disable XML-RPC-API

The upgrade notice keeps coming back on every screen even after being dismissed. It looks very unprofessional to my clients and is embarrassing for me as a web developer, i would rather disable the plugin and use the code in a function. 

It should be permanently dismissible via a cookie, like for other plugins. It might be ok once, when the plugin is first installed or updated, but after that, it should never appear again. 

Good plugin, but upgrade nag is too annoying

A simple and lightweight plugin to disable XML-RPC API, X-Pingback and pingback-ping in WordPress 3.5+ for a faster and more secure website

WordPress Security Plugin – WordShield vs Disable XML-RPC-API