HTTP Digest Authentication vs Two Factor Auth

This plugin adds an additional layer of protection for the wp-login.php page using HTTP Digest Authentication with the PHP header() function. So it doesn’t require configuring web server files like .htaccess or .htdigest and works on all web hosting environments. Important: If you already have a plugin which does HTTP Authentication please deactivate it before activating this plugin. Similarly if you have configured your web server to do HTTP authentication on the wp-login.php file please remove it before using this plugin. If you are using FastCGI PHP this plugin may keep prompting for the credentials even if you enter the right pair, in this case use the following in your .htaccess file SetEnvIfNoCase ^Authorization$ "(.+)" PHP_AUTH_DIGEST=$1 Advantages of HTTP Digest Authentication Digest Authentication is very much safer than HTTP Basic Authentication whose credentials can be easily decoded with a base64 decoder. From Wikipedia on HTTP Basic Authentication: The BA (Basic Authentication) mechanism provides no confidentiality protection for the transmitted credentials. They are merely encoded with BASE64 in transit, but not encrypted or hashed in any way. Digest Authentication on the other hand uses MD5 on the credentials making it “one way” Uses server and client nonces to prevent replay attacks Features of the HTTP Digest Auth plugin Works using PHP header() function and doesn’t require modification of service config files (like .htaccess, nginx.conf etc) Supports HTTP credentials for each WordPress user Clears the HTTP Digest credentials when the user logs out of WordPress (more on this in the FAQ) Verifies if both the HTTP and WordPress credentials are of the same user (this is the default behavior and can be changed) Works on all major Web Servers (Tested on Apache, Nginx and Lighttpd) Plugin Behavior When this plugin is activated for the first time all WordPress users will have the following Digest credentials Username: Password: password This can be changed from Users > Your Profile. After activating this plugin for the first time you’ll be prompted for HTTP credentials when you logout Similarly if you change your HTTP username or password you’ll be prompted for this when you logout Available languages English Serbo-Croatian by Borisa Djuraskovic The HTTP Digest Authentication Plugin official homepage.

Secure WordPress login with this two factor auth. Users will have to enter an One Time Password when they log in. Why You Need This Users can have common or weak passwords that lets hackers/bots brute-force your WordPress site and gain access to your files and place malware there. Just like happend not that long ago: Article on TechCrunch If all sites would have used this plugin, this would never happend. It doesn’t matter how weak your users passwords are, no one can gain access to your WordPress site without already having access to the users mobile phone or email inbox (depending on how the user gets his OTP). How Does It Work? This plugin uses the industry standard algorithm TOTP or HOTP for creating One Time Passwords. A OTP is valid for a certain time and after that a new code has to be entered. You can now choose to use third party apps like Google Authenticator which is available for most mobile platforms. You can really use any third party app that supports TOTP/HOTP that generates 6 digits OTP’s. Or, as before, you can choose to get your One Time Passwords by email. Since you have to enter a secret code to third party apps, email is the default way of delivering One Time Passwords. Your users will have to activate delivery by third party apps themselves. Easy To Use Just install this plugin and you’re all set. There’s really nothing more to it. If you want to use a third party app, goto Two Factor Auth in the admin menu and activate it and set up your app. General settings can be found uner Settings -> Two Factor Auth in admin menu. Settings for each individual user can be found at the root level of the admin menu, in Two Factor Auth. A bit more work to get logged in, but a whole lot more secure! If you use WooCommerce or other plugins that make custom login forms, you will not be able to login through those anymore. I will be adding a plugin that puts a One Time Password field to WooCommerce. If you use some other plugin that needs support for this, let me know in the support forum. TOTP or HOTP Which algorithm you and your users choose doesn’t really matter. The time based TOTP is a bit more secure since a One Time Password is valid only for a certain amount of time. But this requires the server time to be in sync the clients time (if the OTP isn’t delivered by email). This is often hard to do with embedded clients and the event based HOTP is then a better choice. If you have a somewhat slow email server and have chosen email delivery, you might not get the TOTP in time. Conslusion: Choose which ever you want. TOTP is a little bit safer since OTP:s only are valid for a short period. Note that email delivery users always uses the site default algorithm, which you can set on the settings page. Third party apps users can choose which one they want. Is this really Two Factor Auth? Before version 3.0 this plugin had ‘kind of’ two factor auth where the OTP was delivered to an email address. Since version 3.0 you can have real two factor auth if you activate the Third Party Apps delivery type. Read more about what two factor auth means >>. See http://oskarhane.com/plugin-two-factor-auth-for-wordpress/ for more info.