pixelperfectionYo

I just activated the iThemes’ “Brute Force Protection” aspect of its Security Plugin and now I suddenly have 1 host locked out and 632 error pages (404 errors) to go through and fix? It’s a cruel joke – by adding protecting from brute force attacks I just attracted them.
Submitting bug report on their site – but seriously,anyone know how I can talk to a human?

Apparently the “Enable Brute Force Protection” aspect of the iThemes Security Plugin is not working. This also happened 2 days after I reset my password after iThemes notified me that their security was breached and thus I changed my password. “Automatically ban ‘admin’ user” function does not work for me either.

Any recommendations?

I would like to verify that my .htaccess file is correct after de-installing this plugin since the “other notes” section on “uninstalling WP Super Cache” mentions that “it doesn’t as yet remove the mod_rewrite rules from the .htaccess file” and then it says “Look for the section in that file marked by SuperCache BEGIN and END tags”

The problem I have with these vague directions is that
a. they are still somewhat vague
b. I don’t see “SuperCache BEGIN and END” tags, I only see “BEGIN and END” (without the word SuperCache). Do I delete these and the stuff inbetween them? or will that wreck my site?

I’m still not sure exactly what I delete – do I delete these BEGIN and END tags and the contents in-between? I doubt so but these directions should be updated to be explicit so unknowing users like me don’t inadvertently remove crucial code from this file and wreck my site.

Can someone specify how to do the following exactly?
“Remove the Super Cache mod_rewrite rules from your .htaccess file”

My .htaccess file is currently:

Options +Includes
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml .html .htm

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

Oops – I should explain that those articles set my mind at ease only because when I go into my .htaccess file it does match the contents that they suggest so apparently the WP Supercache Plug-in DID NOT change my .htaccess mod rewrite rules in the first place as it was supposed to (which is actually a relief because that means less mess to clean up when de-installing the plugin). So this further proves my point that this plugin doesn’t work – at least it didn’t for me.

This is a great article to read if you think you may have messed up your .htaccess file.

I was looking for some sort of “default .htaccess” file to compare against. I do have “pretty permalinks” set up in Settings > Permalinks to use the postname so reading this set my mind at ease:

https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/45898/default-htaccess-file-for-wordpress

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

And another useful article on this subject as well:
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Using_Permalinks