Powering millions of sites around the world makes WordPress a frequent target for malicious attacks by hackers.

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

These attacks were caused by botnets (computer networks infected with malware and programmed to attack other sites with security vulnerabilities).

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 WordPress sites is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. This can be done with scripts and software that can guess hundreds of login possibilities in minutes.

If you’re using weak usernames and weak passwords that are easy to guess, your website could be easily hacked by repeated attempts to guess your site’s login details.

This is called a “brute-force” attack.

What Is A Botnet?

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)

A “Botnet” is a network of computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious code or scripts, which are then controlled remotely as a group, often without the computer owners even being aware that this is happening.

Botnets are typically used to send out mass spam emails from computers of unsuspecting users.

Below is a screenshot taken from an internet security monitoring site showing the locations of the command centers of a botnet that has been actively compromising computer networks all around the world since 2009 called “Zeus” …

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

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

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

(WordPress often is targeted by hackers, due to its global popularity)

Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Use WordPress Anymore?

No. In fact, there are lots of great reasons why you should choose WordPress if you are concerned about the security of your web presence.

We explain what makes WordPress a very secure platform for websites in this article: Is WordPress A Secure Platform For Websites?

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

Mike Little, one of the co-founders of WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, said this 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)

Protecting Your WordPress Site From Brute-Force Attacks – Ten Security Checks

Every site with a vulnerability can be seen as a potential opportunity to hackers. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, web security is something you cannot ignore. Large, medium and small sites, personal blogs, government sites … even web sites owned by online security experts can and have been targeted.

If hackers can exploit a security flaw in your system that allows them to access and control your blog, the blog can then be employed to target larger and more highly-valued websites.

Additional undesirable impacts of having your site hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links promoting things like viagra, cheap offers on brand names, etc. in your content and page title and descriptions, malicious redirects to phishing sites or other websites, data exfiltration (stealing information or Personal Identifiable Information from your web applications), and lots of other nasties.

The harsh reality is that malicious bots are very likely trying to break into your website or blog right now. Whether they can do this successfully or not, depends on how hard or easy you will make things for them to continue trying until they either discover a way 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 WordPress Site?

Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security check …

(WordPress Security Check Product image: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)

You will see that the test returns various results and information about your website …

(Hackertarget – WordPress security check results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using this tool that if you can see all of this information, so can hackers.

(Product image: BlogDefender.com)

The ability to see which version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed on your site, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories on your server can all be useful information to hackers, as this can inform them about any potential security weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their files.

If your website runs on WordPress and you’re not preventive steps to bullet-proof your site, it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these brute force attacks are systematically hitting WordPress sites all the world!

Whenever a site gets hacked, webmasters will find themselves completely “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been modified or even entirely wiped out. Often, most sites will become infected with malicious software without the owner even being aware that this has happened.

To help avoid the heartache (and potential financial loss) of having your website or blog being hacked into, below are ten simple, yet essential and effective security measures that will help to prevent your WordPress site from being attacked by brute-force botnet hacking attempts.

Note: A few of the recommended measures listed below need some technical skills to modify core WordPress or server files. If you have no technical skills, or don’t want to mess around with file code, then ask your web host or search for a WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Hosting Service Provider

Contact your webhosting provider and ask them exactly what precautions they offer to protect your site from botnet attacks, and what they are doing to make sure that your server files and data get regularly backed up.

Check that your webhosting company regularly backs up your server files and that, if anything happens, you can quickly and easily get your site back.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Full WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Or Blog Frequently Updated

You should never rely only on your web host for your site backups. Instead, learn how to maintain and manage your WordPress site or get this service done for you and develop a habit of religiously performing a complete WordPress site maintenance routine frequently (e.g. daily, weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

A complete WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A full WordPress maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WordPress web site frequently backed up and up-to-date is vitally important for WordPress security. Screenshot: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important maintaining your WP installation regularly backed up and updated is. WP site maintenance is not hard to do or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website or blog. If you don’t want to learn how to do WordPress maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure it gets done. Backing up your website is the next most important thing you should do after making sure that your heart is still beating!

If you don’t want to back up your files manually, there are a number of free and paid plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Clone & Keep Your WP Websites And Blogs Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

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

The mass brute-force attack on WordPress sites was mostly an attempt to compromise site admin panels and gain access to the site by exploiting installations with “admin” as the username.

For website security purposes, avoid installing WordPress sites with the username admin. This is the first area hackers will test. If your site’s username is admin, change it immediately.

For a step-by-step tutorial created especially for WordPress admin users that shows you how to change your username, go here: Changing Your WP User Name From Admin To A More Secure User Name

Security Measure #4 – Use A Strong Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software continually and persistently tries to guess the right combination of characters in a password and username that will unlock your website.

Unless you put some measure in place to stop the brute force attack from happening (see further below for a couple of simple and effective suggestions for doing this), the “bot” will just persist in attacking your site until it eventually gets access.

Weak passwords, therefore, make really easy targets for hackers. Make sure that you change your password to something containing at least 8 or 9 characters long, with upper and lowercase letters, and add a few “special” characters (%^#$@&*).

If you have trouble coming up with strong passwords or feel reluctant to set up different passwords for all your online logins, then use a password management software tool like Roboform …

(Roboform is a password management software you can use to help you generate really secure passwords)

For a simple step-by-step tutorial created especially for admin users that shows you how to change your WordPress admin password, go here: Changing The Login Password

Security Measure #5 – Protect Your WP Config File

The wp-config.php file allows WordPress to communicate with the database to store and retrieve data and is used to define advanced options for WordPress.

(wp-config.php)

If hackers break into your website, they will normally try to access your wp-config.php file, because this is the file that contains your WordPress database details, security keys, etc. Getting access to this information would allow someone 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 being attacked and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, you must prevent people from 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 – Delete Or Rename Unnecessary Installation Files

Rename or delete your install.php, upgrade.php and readme.html files.

You can remove these files after installation, as they are unnecessary. If you don’t want to remove these files, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Keep Your WordPress Files, Plugins And Themes Up-To-Date

Hackers search for vulnerabilities in previous versions of WordPress that they can exploit, including out-of-date versions of WP themes and plugins.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your Theme Editor

WordPress installations come with a built-in editor that allows you to edit plugin and theme code from the dashboard area.

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor via the dashboard menu)

This allows anyone accessing your site to view and edit your files, or cause mayhem on your site.

To prevent unauthorized people from being able to access 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 – Secure The WordPress Uploads Folder

The “uploads” folder contains all the media files that get uploaded to your website.

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

(WordPress has an uploads folder where all of your media files are stored)

If any directories in your website have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers, someone could upload unauthorized file types or compromise the security of your website.

Protecting your directories will prevent online users from viewing your ‘uploads’ folder and other important directories. This can be done using plugins, setting file permissions, uploading a blank index.php file (this is literally a file with nothing in it called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to use a professional if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – WordPress Security Plugins

Several security plugins for WordPress are available that specifically address common security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing hackers from accessing vital areas of your site, protecting your files from malicious exploits, preventing unauthorized file uploads, etc.

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

(SecureScanPro – complete security software for WordPress)

SecureScanPro is easy to install and easy to use, and addresses most of the security issues that WordPress users need to address.

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

Blog Defender Security Solution For WordPress Blogs

(Blog Defender Security Solution)

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

BlogDefender scans you web site for potential security weaknesses …

And then shows you how to quickly and easily fix these …

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

WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like ensuring that your WordPress software, WP plugins and themes are kept up-to-date, tightening file and data security 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, you cannot ignore the importance of website security.

As a final reminder, below is the advice given by a web security expert to all WordPress users following the worldwide brute force attacks 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, WordPress security is of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, this information has given you the initial guidelines and help you need 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 professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, remember subscribe to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications when we publish new tutorials on WordPress security and tutorials about new WordPress security plugins and solutions.

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