[ikk157]

It simply protects from automated brute force attacks which today are mostly 99% of all attacks thanks to huge automated botnets. 1% are the people you mentioned that would simply run a port scan or similar to find the new port.

That's usually how changing a default port to a non default port helps with brute force attacks. Generally this is helpful because it really stops all automated brute force attacks and thus can even drop down the load on the system (depending on the volume of the brute force attack).

Ah I see. But wouldn’t something like a cool down when entering a wrong password be even better? The sort of thing where you have to wait an X amount of time if you enter the wrong password a good number of times. And the time increases if you proceed to enter wrong passwords.

For example:
Let’s say i type in the password wrong 3 times. It then says I have to wait 10mins before i can try again. Then I type it wrong again. It then says I have to wait 20mins before I can try again. And so on...

I don’t know if I’ve explained this clearly, I feel like I’ve done a horrible job at that