How to change the WordPress Administrator User ID

This “How to change the WordPress Administrator User ID” guide will help you secure your WordPress administrator username. Being the most targeted entry point in your WordPress account, changing the User ID to a higher number will at least make any brute-force attacker work double to get a hand on your admin account.

This recommended security protocol will not make your website attack-proof, as any framework can be compromised no matter the security measure utilized. The goal of this article is to show to the reader the urgent need to make the wordpress install robustly secured, as the default setup leaves the backend open to easy drive-by hacks.

➤ How to change the WordPress Administrator User ID using SQL and phpMyAdmin

Tip: You can do this using basic SQL or phpMyAdmin for easier query via CPanel.

WordPress sets the default administrator User ID to 1. Years of development did not move guys at Automattic to at least set this to a random number. Anyone who types-in this URL on a browser will be able to see the default administrator username.

http://nameofyourwebsite.com/?author=1

Change “nameofyourwebsite” to your WordPress website to test on your own server. After typing that URL, and if the User ID is set to 1, you will be redirected to this URL:

http://nameofyourwebsite.com/author/superadministrator/

The super administrator username will show at the end of that URL. If your User ID is set to 1, then the “superadministrator” value will show you your present administrator username. As a quick remedy, we should change the User ID to a higher random number.

Using SQL with phpMyAdmin, you can change the values with these SQL commands:

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_author=’442′ WHERE post_author=’1′;

UPDATE wp_users SET ID = ‘442’ WHERE ID = ‘1’;

UPDATE wp_usermeta SET user_id = ‘442’ WHERE user_id = ‘1’;

ALTER TABLE wp_users AUTO_INCREMENT = 443;

Make sure to pattern the value “wp_” to your own implemented SQL table name, say “mydatabase_”. The number ‘442’ is the value that we will utilize to change the default ‘1’. The number ‘443’ will be the starting User ID value after the first user created instead of ‘2’. Some databases will not accept the command if ‘wp_posts’, ‘wp_users’, ‘wp_usermeta’, if they are not enclosed with a ` grave accent or backquote character. To apply this tweak, refer to the custom command below:

UPDATE `mydatabase_posts` SET post_author=’442′ WHERE post_author=’1′;

UPDATE `mydatabase_users` SET ID = ‘442’ WHERE ID = ‘1’;

UPDATE `mydatabase_usermeta` SET user_id = ‘442’ WHERE user_id = ‘1’;

ALTER TABLE `mydatabase_users` AUTO_INCREMENT = 443;

Let me just reiterate that this will not fix issues with WordPress security, but make your default install and administrator username more secure especially if your website is under a malicious targeted attack. Please don’t forget to chime-in your comments if this works out for you.

posted April 23, 2018 by THE11thROCK for TeraBlitz.com

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