{"id":56197,"date":"2025-01-29T20:17:49","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T20:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/affiliate-marketing\/how-wordpress-exposes-your-admin-username-how-to-fix-it\/"},"modified":"2025-01-29T20:17:49","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T20:17:49","slug":"how-wordpress-exposes-your-admin-username-how-to-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=56197","title":{"rendered":"How WordPress Exposes Your Admin Username & How to Fix It!"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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\"How<\/a><\/p>\n

I received an alarming DM from one of my e-buddies, Darren of Small Biz Geek<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is what it said\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n

Say whaaaaaaaaat?<\/p>\n

Now, I will say this\u2026<\/p>\n

I know not to ever<\/strong> use \u201cadmin\u201d for my username, and I\u2019m aware of the nickname issue.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the nickname issue, you ask?<\/p>\n

Always change your admin nickname to something else, otherwise the name shown with your comments will be your username.<\/p>\n

Go into Users from your dashboard, and edit your Admin user account. Make sure you change your nickname to something other than your username<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But I had already done that, so I wasn\u2019t aware of any other username vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

Well there\u2019s another one, and it\u2019s a biggy!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Byline Might Be Exposing Your Username<\/h2>\n

Darren figured out my login username for my new site<\/a>, and he didn\u2019t have to hack the database or go to great lengths to figure it out.<\/p>\n

All he did was hover over a link in my author byline.<\/p>\n

You might have the same vulnerability on your WordPress site, and there\u2019s a very easy fix.<\/p>\n

If you have \u201cBy [Name]\u201d in your byline that usually shows up underneath your WordPress title, you might be exposing your admin username.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So I wouldn\u2019t risk exposing anyone\u2019s site that was vulnerable, the byline in the above example is not even hyperlinked, but I just wanted to show an example of what it would look like since I ended up removing my byline altogether.<\/p>\n

Anywho\u2026<\/p>\n

Hover over that name in your byline. (Not all themes show the byline.)<\/p>\n

You will notice it goes to http:\/\/yoursite.com\/author\/[name]\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whatever you see in the [name] is your login username.<\/p>\n

How crazy is it that WordPress has not addressed this yet???? As if WordPress is not vulnerable enough!<\/strong><\/p>\n

And since most of us post using our Admin accounts, this is dangerous. You are basically telling the hackers of the world what your WordPress admin login username is.<\/p>\n

So all they have to do is run their script to figure out your password. And if it\u2019s super simple then it\u2019s not hard for them to crack into your account.<\/p>\n

For the record, hackers easily crack some passwords by running scripts that attempt to figure them out. They typically start alphabetically and go down the list.<\/p>\n

a\u2026 aa\u2026 aaa\u2026 aaab\u2026 aaabbb and then they had numbers to the end.<\/p>\n

Sounds tedious, right? But here\u2019s the deal\u2026<\/p>\n

This is happening at a rate of million of attempts per second because it\u2019s a script,<\/strong> so they can go through the millions of combinations\u00a0VERY<\/strong> quickly.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like John (or Jane) \ud83d\ude42 is sitting at your login screen manually entering each option. This process is totally automated!<\/p>\n

Many WP blogs get hacked because they use \u201cadmin\u201d as the username and then a super simple password. \u00a0That\u2019s why you should always use lowercase, numbers, uppercase and<\/strong> symbols.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re using a password like happy123, then you\u2019re begging to get hacked \u2014 especially if your username is exposed in the byline.<\/p>\n

For the record, words that can be found in the dictionary are a big no-no \u2014 even if you add numbers at the end.<\/p>\n

How to Hide Your Username In The Byline<\/h2>\n

This may seem intimidating at first, but it\u2019s super easy and should only take you about 3-5 minutes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Darren created a video that explains all this and shows you how to fix the problem. There are also text instructions below.<\/p>\n