When eve we talk about WordPress Security, very first suggestion is to change WordPress default username. As WordPress default username is ”admin” and it makes it hackers to attempt a brute-force attack using username admin. Since hackers already have your username, it will make it easier for them to find your password using brute forcing. Specially, if your webhosting is not using any login attempt security or you are not using limit-login WordPress plugin, you might end up losing your WordPress blog access.
If you use fantastico or simple script to install WordPress, you get to change username of your blog. If you are installing WordPress 3.2 or above, you can change and set any other username. But, if you happened to be running a WordPress blog with default username i.e. admin, you need to follow this article and change your username right away.
There are many ways to change your default WordPress username:
- PhpMyadmin
- WordPress Plugin: Wp Optimize
PhpmyAdmin is a geeky way but if you enjoy doing most of the thing using Phpmyadmin, you will enjoy this method.
Changing WordPress default user name using PhpMyAdmin
You need to access your PhpMyadmin, which you can do using any WordPress plugin or cPanel. Login to your cPanel and navigate to phpmyadmin.
PhpmyAdmin under cPanel
Once you are inside PhpMyadmin, select your WordPress database and follow next instruction.
Select your WordPress data base
Once you are inside the database, look for Wp_users and click on browse button as shown in below image.
Click on the browse button
Now will see your user name and encrypted form of your password.
click on the pencil icon
Click on the pencil icon to change your WordPress login users name and/or password
Enter the new login username in front of the user_login and/or new password in front of the user_pass
Once you have entered new the login username or/and passwords,click on the drop down right in front of the user_pass and select MD5( this will encrypt your password).
Changing Login username using WordPress Plugin:
As I mentioned above, this method is not for everyone, so lets look at easy way to change WP login username. WP Optimize plugin does many things apart from changing username. Using this plugin you can change admin or anyone username. You can also optimize your database and delete all post revisions. Wp-optimize plugin is easy to use: Simple install & active Wp-optimize plugin. Go to Wp-optimize settings: In the old username field enter “admin” and in new username field, enter your new desire login username. Here is a screenshot for your reference:
Wp Optimize Plugin Settings
Click on process and within seconds your WordPress username will be updated.
Manual method:
There is another trick but that’s a manual process and quite lengthy. In that process:
- Create a new user with admin privilege.
- Login using newly created username.
- Delete admin username.
- Attributes all posts and comments to your username.
Do let us know if you have updated your username or not? Don’t forget to subscribe to our Email newsletter to receive more WordPress security tips.
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Article by Shoaib Hussain
Shoaib has written 10 articles.
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I would suggest you to use Wp-Optimize plugin instead. It directly allows you to rename the login userid. This avoids you to go through all the trouble of changing values in the database manually. Give it a try!
I tried the phpmyadmin way, but it didn’t workout and I faced with an Internal Service Error. Thanks to the immediate help from my HostGator technicians, it got sorted out. I later used the Wp-Optimize plugin, and it worked like charm. Thanks.
Thanks for sharing the article I have changed my name on WP through this article..
Very nice tricks. Maybe, the Php My Admin method is better as plugins increase site load. Actually, this trick can stop others from keep trying to your ‘admin’ default username.
Thanks for sharing
Yes we can Secure our sites from brute force attack by not using default usernames like admin or administrator.
We can also secure wordpress sites from brute force attack by Using Login Lock Plugin.
I would much rather do the manual edit than use yet another plugin, too many will slow your blog down. But I can see that many people would rather use a plugin then risk editing the database themselves and ruining it.
Thanks shoaib. When I read the title of this post at that time I thought I would be a basic article but this is the detailed one. Thanks for this. In my case, I am a victim of brute force attack. Hope this will prevent others.
Plugin method is the most suggested method and most of the time newcomer love to install plugin instead of manual method, They does not risk breaking their website. But plugins can also increase the load on your wordpress site.
thanks for sharing this,nice information..i changed my wordpress directory name from cpanel then i again change the my directory name in default but after that it is showing a 404 error in opening that directory can you plz tell me the solution of this problem?
The Manual one sounds a lot more easier then going to the myphpadmin. but as what the top comment said use wp-optimize plugin which can be trusted. We have that also
I remember once my blog got hacked and i used the same method months ago to reset pass via cpanel . But its not user friendly !
Thanks for the tip. I changed my username after reading this article. Now WP is secured from username point of view.
There is no date I can see on this post, but I installed the WP-Optimize plugin on your recommendation so i could change the admin name and it is not listed. I see by the Change Log for WP Optimize that “security tools” have been removed!
Thanks a lot for such a valuable information. It was my very first visit at phpMyAdmin and I found it very interesting. The credit goes to you.
Thanks once again.