When you are the most popular CMS platform in the world and the online publishing platform of choice for millions of businesses and loved by thousands of website developers and website designers, it’s inevitable that at some point in time, WordPress will come under attack by hackers wanting to score a “big win”.

In early 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to large-scale brute-force attacks.

These attacks were caused by botnets (computers infected with viruses and programmed to attack other installations with security vulnerabilities).

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

What Is A Brute Force Attack?

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. To attempt this, hackers use software programs that can guess hundreds of possible login combinations in minutes.

If you’re not using strong usernames or unguessable passwords, your site could be easily hacked by repeated attempts to guess your site’s login details.

This is called a “brute-force” attack.

Botnets

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 private computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious code, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, often without the computer owners’ knowledge or awareness.

Botnets are often used to blast mass spam emails.

The screenshot below was 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” …

(The Zeus botnet has been actively infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009. Screenshot source: SecureList.com)

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

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

(WordPress often comes under attack by hackers)

Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Use WordPress Anymore?

No. In fact, there are lots of good reasons why you should choose WordPress if you are concerned at all about the security of your online presence.

To understand why WordPress is a secure web platform, see this article: Are Open Source Platforms Like WordPress Secure? What Every Business Owner Needs To Know About WordPress Security

It’s important to understand that, in the case of the brute-force botnet attack described above, no specific WordPress vulnerability was being exploited (the same script was also attacking sites built using platforms like Joomla).

Mike Little, one of the co-founders of WordPress, 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)

Preventing Your WordPress Site From Being Brute-Force Attacked – Ten Security Points

You may think that the information in your website has nothing to offer to hackers, but the reality is that all websites are valuable to a malicious user.

If a malicious user can discover a security opening in your system and remotely control your website, that web site can then be used to attack more valuable sites.

Additional undesirable consequences of being hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by search engines, having stealthy spam links promoting things like gambling, cheap offers on brand names, etc. inserted in your content and meta data, malicious redirects to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious software on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasties.

The reality is that malicious bots are probably trying to break into your website right now. Whether they will do this successfully or not, depends on how difficult or easy you can make things for hackers or bots to keep trying until they discover how to get in, or are forced to decide to look for a less secure target.

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

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

(Website Security Scan Product image source: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)

You will see that the test will display a number of results and information about your site …

(WordPress security check results. Screenshot image: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Product image source: BlogDefender site)

The ability 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 in your site can all be potentially valuable information to hackers, as these can inform them about any potential vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your website runs on WordPress and you are not taking steps to bullet-proof your site, then 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 targeting WordPress installations all the world!

When a website or blog gets compromised, webmasters will discover much to their dismay that they have been “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been modified or even that their content has been completely wiped out. Often, sites will be infected with malicious software without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To help avoid the heartache that comes with having your web site being hacked into, below are ten essential and effective security measures that will help to prevent your WordPress site from brute-force botnet attacks.

Note: Some of the recommended measures below need some technical skills to modify core WordPress and server files. If you are not technical-minded, or don’t want to mess around with file code, then ask your web host or a professional WordPress technical provider for assistance.

***

Security Measure #1 – Get In Touch With Your Web Host

Contact your webhosting provider and ask them what measures have been put into place to protect your site from botnet attacks, and what they do to ensure that your server files get backed up.

It is important to check that your webhosting provider backs up your server files and that, if anything should happen, you can quickly and easily recover your files and data.

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

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

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A proper WordPress maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WordPress website or blog completely backed up and up-to-date is vitally important for WordPress security. Screenshot: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important maintaining your WordPress website or blog regularly backed up and up-to-date is. WordPress site maintenance is not hard 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 WP site maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your website is the next most important thing you should do after making sure that you are still breathing!

If you don’t want to back up your files manually, there are a number of free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here: Back Up, Copy & Protect Your WordPress Web Sites With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

Security Measure #3 – Make Sure That Your Username Is Not “Admin”

The large scale brute-force attack on WordPress sites was mostly attempting to compromise website admin panels and gain access to sites by exploiting sites with “admin” as their account name.

For reasons of website security, never set up WordPress sites with the username “admin”. This is the first thing hackers will test. If your blog’s username is “admin”, then change it immediately.

For a simple tutorial for WordPress users on how to change your login username, go here: Changing Your WP User Name From Admin To A More Secure User Name

Security Measure #4 – Use Strong Passwords

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

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 works out the combination.

Passwords that are easy to guess, therefore, make very easy targets for attacks. Make sure that you change your password to something that contains at least eight or nine characters long, with upper and lowercase letters, and add a few “special” characters (%^#$@&*).

You can use a password management software tool like Roboform to create difficult passwords …

(You can use a password management program like Roboform to create really secure passwords)

For a detailed tutorial that shows you how to change your admin password, go here: How To Reset WordPress Passwords

Security Measure #5 – Protect Your wp-config.php File

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

(WP Config file)

If a hacker breaks into your website, they will typically try to access the wp-config.php file, because this file contains your 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, 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.

These files can be removed after installation. If you don’t want to remove these files, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Update Your WordPress Blog, Plugins And Themes

Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities they can exploit in previous WordPress versions, including outdated versions of plugins and themes.

Ensure that all of your installation files, plugins, themes, etc. are always up to date.

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your WordPress Theme Editor

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

You can access the WordPress Theme Editor by selecting Appearance > Editor in the admin menu …

(The WordPress theme editor can be accessed using the WordPress admin menu)

This means that anyone logging into your blog’s admin area can view and edit your files, and cause mayhem on your site.

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

Security Measure #9 – Remove Access To Your WordPress Uploads Folder

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

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

(WordPress has an uploads directory where your media files are stored)

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

Protecting your directories will prevent unauthorized people from viewing 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 seek professional help if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Security Plugins

A number of great security plugins for WordPress are available that will address most common security issues WordPress site owners face, such as preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to vital information about your site, protecting your files from botnets, preventing injections of code into files, etc.

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

(SecureScanPro – WordPress security plugin)

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

Another plugin you may want to look at using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender Security Solution

(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 shows you where the security holes in your WordPress site are …

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 keeping your WordPress software, plugins and themes updated to their latest versions, 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 ignore.

As one last reminder, below is the advice given by an expert on website security to all WordPress users after the large-scale 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

***

As you can see, website security is of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this article will help keep your WordPress site protected from brute-force attacks. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please consult a professional WordPress security specialist, or search for a WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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

***

***