If you have accidentally locked your Joomla administrator due to the strict security feature implemented through Admin Tools component, then here is the solution to fix the issue.

Cause of issue could be :

• you forgot the ‘Administrator secret URL parameter’.
• you made several unsuccessful login attempts.

The error message that appears on screen would read something similar to  :

You are a spammer, hacker or an otherwise bad person.

You can use any of the two methods to resolve this :

1. Rename Plugin Folder

• Login through FTP
• Go to the plugins/system/admintools/admintools folder
• Rename main.php file to main-disable.php

Now login in the administrator area to confirm the fix is indeed working.

2.  Rename Plugin through PhpMyAdmin

1. Login to Phpmyadmin
2. Choose the database
3. Find “prefix_extensions” table (where prefix is the unique value of your database tables)
4. Filter rows with for plugin’s name: “System – Admin Tools”
5. Edit the record from the results area
6. Change the “enabled” value to 0
7. Save Changes