limit login attampts

Hi, I have recently installed 2 plugins- Custom Login and Social Login, and then I tried to change the lockout field’s values because I was getting mails that there is a lockout for some unknown IP. So, I completely deleted the lockout attempts field(thinking it was because of my login attempts). But I ended up being locked out for 24 hrs and couldnt login as admin even.
I got a number of mails of lockouts for some strange ips.
Tried out solutions(to login as admin atleast) mentioned here, http://codefury.net/2014/07/how-to-work-around-wpengine-too-many-failed-login-attempts/
and ended up renaming mu-plugin because I couldnt find limit-login-attempts in the DB(through myphpadmin ) and didnt have permissions for renaming the limit login folder through sftp.
Now, I have been able to login(it isnt 24 hrs yet), is there any other fool proof solution?