Authors List vs WP Author Security

Easily display a list or grid of post authors (or any other user role) and links to their post archives page using a shortcode. Backend UI can be used to change all the options. Introducing New Authors List Pro The free version offers a large amount of features for free, and the PRO version comes with even more amazing features for your authors list. Some of those features are Styler, Search and Filters. Styler allows easy change of color/typography/spacing on any of the elements in the authors list. Filters allow you to create a better organization of the authors list. Search allows your visitors to search for specific users. Click here to get the PRO version! Shortcode All the options are available in the WP admin but you can also use a plain shortcode (as it was in version 1 of the plugin). The shortcode is [authors_list] and accepts the following attributes. style (1,2,3) columns (2,3,4) columns_direction ( horizontal, vertical ) avatar_size (any number, example 500) amount (any number, no limit by default) show_title (yes,no) show_count (yes,no) show_bio (yes,no) show_link (yes,no) orderby ( post_count, post_date, ID, login, nicename, email, url, registered, display_name, first_name, last_name ) order ( ASC, DESC ) skip_empty ( yes, no ) minimum_posts_count ( any number ) bio_word_trim ( any number, leave empty for no trim ) only_authors ( yes, no ) exclude ( user IDs separated by comma, example 1,3,4 ) include ( user IDs separated by comma, example 1,3,4 ) roles ( roles separated by comma, example administrator,editor ) latest_post_after ( for example if set to 7 it will only show authors that have posts published in the past 7 days ) name_starts_with ( limit to authors whose display name starts with specific characters ) first_name_starts_with ( limit to authors whose first name starts with specific characters ) last_name_starts_with ( limit to authors whose last name starts with specific characters ) categories ( category IDs separated by comma, example 1,3,4 ) terms ( term IDs separate by comma, example 1,3,4 ) taxonomy ( name of a taxonomy, for example post_tag ) title_element (the element that wraps the name of the user/author, defaults to div, can be any element, for example h2) link_count (yes, no) Example usage with attributes: [authors_list style="2" columns="2" amount="4" show_count="no"] There are additional attributes for custom content before and after each element: before_avatar before_title before_count before_bio before_link after_avatar after_title after_count after_bio after_link Example usage with attributes: [authors_list before_title="My custom content"] These before/after attributes also support dynamic user/author meta fields using {al:INSERT_FIELD_NAME} Example usage: [authors_list before_title="My first name is {al:first_name}"] They also support some dynamic output functionality. Currently supports displaying posts links and social links (Yoast SEO needed): Example usage for posts links: [authors_list after_title="{alf:posts}"] [authors_list after_title="{alf:posts type=plain amount=5}"] Example usage for social links: [authors_list after_title="{alf:social}"] Example usage for roles: [authors_list after_title="{alf:role}"] Example usage for link (the “to” parameter accepts foollowing values: archive bbpress_profile buddypress_profile): [authors_list after_title="{alf:link to=bbpress_profile}"] Social Icons SVGs by FontAwesome are licensed under CC BY 4.0 What’s Next If you like this plugin, then please consider leaving us a rating / review. This plugin is maintained by WPKube, a WordPress resource site, where you can learn from our in-depth guides such as What is WordPress, How to choose a WordPress hosting, & more! Our Other Projects Optin Forms: Simple and easy to use plugin for creating optin forms, works with most well known autoresponder services. Simple Basic Contact Form: Light-weight contact form plugin Subscribe to Comments Reloaded: Email Notification plugin for Comments Advanced Excerpts: This plugin adds several improvements to WordPress’ default way of creating excerpts.

WP Author Security is a lightweight but powerful plugin to protect against user enumeration attacks on author pages and other places where valid user names can be obtained. By default, WordPress will display some sensitive information on author pages. The author page is typically called by requesting the URI https://yourdomain.tld/?author= or with permalinks https://yourdomain.tld/author/ . The page will include (depending on your theme) the full name (first and last name) as well as the username of the author which is used to log in to WordPress. In some cases, it is not wanted to expose this information to the public. An attacker is able to brute force valid IDs or valid usernames. This information might be used for further attacks like social engineering attacks or log in brute force attacks with gathered usernames. However, when using the plugin and you disable author pages completely it must be noted that you need to take care that your active theme will not display the author name itself on posts like “Posted by admin” or something like that. This is something the plugin will not handle (at the moment). By using the extension, you are able to disable the author pages either completely or display them only when the author has at least one published post. When the page is disabled the default 404 error page of the active theme is displayed. In addition, the plugin will also protect other locations which are commonly used by attackers to gather valid user names. These are: The REST API for users which will list all users with published posts by default. https://yourdomain.tld/wp-json/wp/v2/users The log in page where different error messages will indicate whether an entered user name or mail address exists or not. The plugin will display a neutral error message independently whether the user exists or not. The password forgotten function will also allow an attacker to check for the existence of a user. As for the log in page the plugin will display a neutral message even when the user does not exists. Requesting the feed endpoint /feed of your blog will also allow others to see the username or display name of the author. The plugin will remove the name from the result list. WordPress supports so-called oEmbeds. This is a technique to embed a reference to a post into another post. However, this reference will also contain the author name and a direct link to the profile page. The plugin will also remove the name and link here. Since WordPress 5.5 a default sitemap can be reached via /wp-sitemap.xml. This sitemap will disclose the usernames of all authors. If this should not be disclosed you are able to disable this feature of WordPress.