Powering millions of websites around the world makes WordPress an easy target for hacking attacks.

In early 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to a worldwide brute-force attack.

These attacks were caused by botnets (infected computer networks programmed to attack other sites).

How To Protect Your WordPress Site From A Brute-Force Attack

Brute Force Attacks

A brute-force attack is a technique used to break an encryption or authentication system by trying all possibilities.

(Source: Chinese University Of Hong Kong)

One of the many ways hackers use to try and break into a WordPress site is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. This can be achieved with software tools that can work through hundreds of login possibilities in minutes.

If you’re using predictable usernames and passwords that are easy to guess, your site could be an easy target for hackers.

This is called a “brute force” login attack.

Botnet – What Is This?

A botnet is a number of Internet-connected computers communicating with other similar machines in an effort to complete repetitive tasks and objectives. This can be as mundane as keeping control of an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel, or it could be used to send spam email or participate in distributed denial-of-service attacks. The word botnet is a combination of the words robot and network.

(Source: Wikipedia.org)

A “Botnet” is a network of private computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious code, which are then controlled remotely as a group, often without the unsuspecting computer owners’ knowledge.

Botnets are regularly used to blast mass spam emails from computers of compromised user accounts.

Below is a screenshot taken from a site that monitors online security showing the locations of the command centers of ZeuS – a botnet that has been actively infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009 …

(ZeuS is a botnet that has been actively compromising computer networks all around the globe since 2009. Screenshot: SecureList.com)

These botnet attacks on WordPress are highly distributed and well organized. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by a number of webhosting companies in the initial attack, when the web was flooded with millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress user administration areas. The worldwide brute force attacks then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress sites being hacked each day.

News of this brute-force attack was widely reported in all the major webhosting companiesand leading technology media publications, such as Forbes, TechNews Daily, PC Magazine, Tech Crunch, BBC News, and even on the official US Department of Homeland Security website …

(WordPress is the world’s most used CMS which makes it a natural target for hacker attacks)

Does This Mean WordPress Is Not Secure And We Should Stop Using It?

No. In fact, there are lots of great reasons why you should use WordPress if you are concerned about website security.

To learn what makes WordPress a very secure web platform, see this article: Are Open Source Platforms Like WordPress Secure? What Every Website Owner Needs To Know

It’s important to note that, in the case of April 2013 mass brute-force attack described above, was no specific vulnerability in WordPress being exploited (the same script was also targeting sites built using other web platforms like Joomla).

Mike Little, one of the co-founders of WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, made this comment about the brute-force attacks:

It is a “simple” script that attempts to login using the admin login and a generated password. So if your password is too short or based on dictionary words it will be guessed and then the script can login legitimately and do whatever it wants including installing scripts (as plugins) or editing files. The attack tries to guess your password, if it succeeds, the most secure site in the world is wide open because they have your password.

(MikeLittle.org)

How To Protect Your WordPress Site From Being Brute Force Attacked – 10 Security Measures

Every blog with a vulnerability can be seen as a potential opportunity to hackers. A vulnerable website or blog provides malicious users with a valuable resource for stealth attacks, spreading malware and to engage in information theft.

If someone can find a way to take over and control your blog, your web site can then be used as a “bot” to attack more valued web sites.

Additional undesirable effects of having your website hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by Google, having stealthy spam links advertising things like gambling, porn, etc. inserted in your content, redirecting visitors to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious programs on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasties.

The truth is that software-driven bots are probably trying to hack into your website or blog as you are reading this article. Whether they will successfully get into your site will depend on how hard you have made it for hackers to keep persisting until they can discover how to get in, or are forced to decide to look for a less secure target.

How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your Site?

Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security scan …

(WordPress Security Check Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the test returns various results and details about your site setup …

(Hackertarget – website security scan results. Source: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you are able to access all of this information about your WordPress site, hackers can too.

(Image source: Blog Defender)

Being able to see which version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories can all be potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about potentially exploitable holes or weaknesses, especially where site owners haven’t updated their files.

If your site or blog runs on WordPress and you’re not preventive steps to toughen up your site, then it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point, someone will attempt to hack your website, because these attacks are systematically hitting WordPress sites around the world!

Whenever a site is compromised, site owners can find themselves completely “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been altered or even that their content has been entirely wiped out. Often, most sites will become infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To avoid the heartache and frustration (and significant financial loss) that comes with having your site being hacked into, we have listed below 10 essential and effective security checks that will help to prevent your WordPress site from being attacked by brute-force hackers.

Note: Some of the measures below need some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress and server files. If you lack these technical skills, or don’t want to mess around with file code, then ask your web host or search for a WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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Security Measure #1 – Get In Touch With Your Hosting Provider

Get in touch with your webhosting provider and ask them what systems they offer to protect your site from being attacked, and what they are doing to make sure that your WordPress sites are regularly being backed up.

Check that your webhosting company is backing up your server files and that, if anything happens, you can easily get your files back.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Regular WordPress Backups And Keep Your Site Frequently Up-To-Date

Never rely only on your webhosting company for site backups. Instead, learn how to maintain your WordPress site or get this service done for you and develop a habit of performing a full site maintenance routine on a regular basis (e.g. daily, weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

• All unnecessary data and files are removed,
• All files and data are free of errors, optimized and backed up,
• All WordPress software, plugins and themes are up-to-date,
• etc …

A complete WP maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WordPress site completely backed up and updated is vitally important for WordPress security. Image source: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important maintaining your WP site regularly backed up and up-to-date is. WP maintenance is not hard to do or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website. If you don’t want to learn how to do WP site maintenance yourself, pay a professional to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your site is the next most important thing you must do after making sure that you still have a pulse!

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Backup, Clone & Keep Your WP Website Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

Security Measure #3 – Do Not Use “Admin” As The Admin Username

The brute force botnet attack on WordPress sites was mostly an attempt to compromise website admin panels by exploiting sites with “admin” as their account name.

For website security purposes, never set up sites with the username admin. This is the first area hackers will test. If your blog’s user name is admin, change this immediately.

For a step-by-step tutorial for non-technical WP admin users that shows you how to change your WordPress username, go here: How To Change Your WordPress Admin Username To Another User Name

Security Measure #4 – Avoid Weak Passwords

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software continually and persistently tries to guess the right combination of password and username characters that will give the hacker entry to your site.

Unless you put some measure in place to prevent the brute force attack (see further below for a couple of effective ways to do this), the “bot” will just continue attacking your site until it eventually “cracks” the code.

Weak passwords, therefore, are very easy targets for brute-force attacks. Make sure that you change your password combination to something that is at least eight or nine characters long, with both upper and lowercase letters, and add a few “special” characters (e.g. ^, #, @, etc).

Roboform is a password tool that lets you create different secure passwords …

(You can use a password management software tool like Roboform to help you generate very secure passwords)

For a detailed tutorial that shows you how to change your login password, go here: How To Change Your WordPress Password

Security Measure #5 – Prevent Access To Your wp-config.php File

The wp-config.php file contains important information about your blog’s database and is used to define advanced options for WordPress.

(wp-config.php file)

If a hacker breaks into your WordPress website, they will normally look for your wp-config.php file, because this file contains important information about your site’s database, security keys, etc. Getting access to this information would allow a hacker to change anything in your database, create a user account, upload files and take control of your site.

In order to protect your WordPress site from attacks and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, prevent people accessing your wp-config.php file. This requires knowing how to edit database information, move files around in your server and changing access permissions.

Security Measure #6 – Rename Or Delete Unnecessary Site Installation Files

Delete or rename the install.php, upgrade.php and readme.html files from your server.

These files are not required after installation and can be deleted. If you don’t want to remove these files, then just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Upgrade Your WordPress Blog, Themes & Plugins

Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities in outdated versions of WordPress that can be exploited, including outdated versions of WP plugins and themes.

Make sure to keep your installation files, plugins, themes, etc. up-to-date.

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

WordPress comes with a built-in editor feature that allows administrators to edit theme and plugin files inside the dashboard area.

In WordPress, you can access your WordPress Theme Editor by selecting Appearance > Editor from the admin menu …

(The WordPress theme editor is accessible using the WP admin menu)

The WordPress theme editor allows anyone accessing your site to view and edit your theme template files, and cause havoc on your site.

To prevent unauthorized people from accessing the WordPress Theme editor, you will need to disable it. This can be done by adding code to your wp-config.php file.

Security Measure #9 – Remove Access To Your Site’s Uploads Folder

The “uploads” directory stores all the media that gets uploaded to your site.

By default, this folder is visible to online users. All someone has to do to see the contents stored in your site’s “uploads” folder is visit the directory using their browser …

(WordPress uploads folder)

If any directories in your website have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users, this can become a serious threat to the security of your site.

Protecting your directories will prevent unauthorized people from accessing your ‘uploads’ folder and other important directories. This can be done using plugins, setting file permissions, adding a blank index.php file (this is literally a file with nothing in it named “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to consult a professional if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Security Plugins

There are some great security plugins for WordPress available that will address common security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing unauthorized users from accessing your site, protecting your site from malicious exploits, preventing unauthorized file uploads, etc.

Many WordPress plugins address some but not all areas of WordPress security. One security plugin that does a comprehensive job of scanning, fixing and preventing potential issues that could lead to hackers accessing your site files and damaging your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – WP total security software solution)

SecureScanPro is easy to install and easy to use, and does a great job of addressing most of the security areas that WordPress users need to address.

Another great security plugin you may want to consider using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender Security Suite

(Blog Defender)

This product is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.

BlogDefender scans you website for potential security vulnerabilities …

And then shows you how to fix these quickly …

If you don’t want to buy a security plugin like SecureScanPro or BlogDefender, then use various free plugins, such as Limit Login Attempts …

WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress installation, WordPress plugins and WordPress themes, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.

No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, website security is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.

As one last reminder of the importance of keeping your websites protected, below is the advice given by an expert on website security to all WordPress users after the worldwide brute-force attacks by botnets on WordPress in 2013 …

Owners of websites based on WordPress CMS must improve at least basic security settings and implement best practices such as the use of robust passwords and the accurate management of “admin” accounts.

Pierluigi Paganini, Chief Information Security Officer, Security Affairs

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As you can see, website security is very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the above information has given you the initial steps you need to take to keep your WordPress site protected from brute force attacks. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please consult a WordPress security specialist, or search for a WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

We also recommend subscribing to WPCompendium.org to be notified via email when we publish new articles on WordPress security and reviews of new security plugins and solutions.

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