Title: Display Name Security
Last modified: August 21, 2016

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# Display Name Security

 *  Resolved [Russell Cohen (Mywebapps)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/maskil/)
 * (@maskil)
 * [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/display-name-security/)
 * 2 questions regarding the Display Name Security tab on All in One WP Security.
 * The explanatory text for this setting is as follows:
 * “When you submit a post or answer a comment, WordPress will usually display your“
   nickname”.
    By default the nickname is set to the login (or user) name of your
   account. From a security perspective, leaving your nickname the same as your 
   user name is bad practice because it gives a hacker at least half of your account’s
   login credentials. Therefore to further tighten your site’s security you are 
   advised to change your nickname and Display name to be different from your Username.”
 * 1 When aiowpsec reports on bad accounts, however, it tells us that “Your site
   currently has the following accounts which have an identical login name and display
   name.”, i.e. it says nothing about users where the username and nickname are 
   identical. Is this as it should be?
 * 2 Secondly, when reporting on bad accounts, it reports on ALL users failing the
   test (i.e. including subscribers, etc.), not just the Admin Users. Is this correct?
 * Thanks for a fantastic plugin!
 * [http://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-security-and-firewall/](http://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-security-and-firewall/)

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  Plugin Contributor [wpsolutions](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wpsolutions/)
 * (@wpsolutions)
 * [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/display-name-security/#post-4022018)
 * Hi,
    1. When you change your nickname to a value which is different from the 
   username the new value is added to the display name drop-down box.
 * It then follows that if you set your display name to the new nickname then it
   is impossible to have an identical username and nickname. (Sorry if that sounds
   confusing but go to the profile screen and see for yourself and you’ll know what
   I mean :))
 * 2. Yeah you do have a valid point there. Non-the-less it is still good security
   practice irrespective of account type but I think that maybe in a future version
   we will change this behaviour to only check for accounts with “administrator”
   privileges.
 *  Thread Starter [Russell Cohen (Mywebapps)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/maskil/)
 * (@maskil)
 * [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/display-name-security/#post-4022036)
 * Thanks, I see what you mean. Thanks again for making WordPress security accessible
   to “the rest of us”!
 * p.s. I’ve now made the plugin part of the standard WordPress “Build” for my clients:
   [http://mywebapps.org/2013/08/all-in-one-wp-security-firewall/](http://mywebapps.org/2013/08/all-in-one-wp-security-firewall/).

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Display Name Security’ is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://ps.w.org/all-in-one-wp-security-and-firewall/assets/icon-256x256.
   png?rev=2798307)
 * [All-In-One Security (AIOS) – Security and Firewall](https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-security-and-firewall/)
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 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Russell Cohen (Mywebapps)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/maskil/)
 * Last activity: [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/display-name-security/#post-4022036)
 * Status: resolved