When you are the world’s most popular content management system and the preferred online publishing platform used by millions of websites and loved by thousands of website developers and web designers, it’s inevitable that at some point in time, WordPress will come under attack from hackers.

In April 2013 a large-scale brute-force attack struck WordPress installations across virtually every host server in existence around the world.

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

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)

There are many ways hackers try to break into WordPress sites. One of these is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. This is done using scripts and tools that can guess hundreds of login permutations in minutes.

If you’re using weak usernames and passwords that are easy to guess, your website could be easily hacked by the software’s persistent attempts to work out 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/botnet)

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

Botnets are regularly used to send out mass spam emails.

Below is a screenshot taken from a site that monitors online security 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 compromising computer networks all around the world since 2009. Source: SecureList.com)

These were well organized and highly distributed attacks on WordPress. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several hosting companies in the initial attack, when millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress site administration areas took place. The attack then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress blogs being hacked each day.

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

(WordPress powers millions of sites around the world, making it an obvious target for malicious attacks by hackers)

Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Use WordPress Anymore?

No. In fact, there are many very good reasons why you should continue using WordPress if you are concerned at all about the security of your online business.

To understand what makes WordPress a very secure platform for websites, read this article: Can You Build A Secure Business Online Using WordPress?

It’s important to understand that, in the case of April 2013 brute force attack described above, there was no WordPress vulnerability being exploited (the same script was also targeting sites built using other CMS applications like Joomla).

Mike Little, the co-founder 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)

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

Every site with a vulnerability provides an opportunity to hackers. A vulnerable site not only presents wannabe hackers opportunities to improve their skills and claim “bragging rights” amongst their peers, but it can also be a resource for distributed attacks, distributing malware and as a source for creating information theft.

If a malicious user can exploit a software flaw in your security, that website or blog can then be employed as a “bot” to attack larger and more highly-valued sites.

Additional undesirable consequences of being hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links advertising things like casinos, discounted fashion, etc. in your content and page title and descriptions, malicious redirects to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious programs on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasty things.

The reality is that malicious bots are trying to hack into your blog as you are reading this page right now. Whether they will successfully hack in or not, will depend on how hard or easy you will make it for hackers to continue persisting until they can discover how to break in, or give up and decide to look for a less secure target.

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

If you visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security scan …

(Hackertarget – WP Security Check Source: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the check returns a number of results and information about your WordPress site …

(Hackertarget – website security check results. Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you can access all of this information, then so can hackers.

(Screenshot source: Blog Defender)

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 on your server can all be potentially useful information to hackers, as these can inform them about potentially exploitable vulnerabilities, especially where the owners haven’t updated their software versions.

If your website is powered by WordPress and you’re not precautionary steps to bolster the security of your site, we can practically guarantee that, at some time in the near future, someone will attempt to hack your site, because these brute force attacks are systematically hitting WordPress installations around the world!

Whenever a website or blog is hacked, webmasters will find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their content has been modified or that everything has been entirely wiped out. Often, compromised sites will be infected with malicious software or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To avoid the heartache and frustration (and significant loss of valuable business data) that comes with discovering that your site has been 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 botnets.

Note: Some of the steps below need some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress or server files. If you have no web skills, or don’t want to mess around with code on your site, 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 Service

Contact your webhosting service and ask them exactly what precautions have been put in place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what is done to ensure that your site files are being regularly backed up.

Check that your hosting provider regularly backs up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily recover your files and data.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Regular WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Regularly Maintained

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

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A full WordPress site maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important maintaining your WordPress site regularly backed up and updated is. WordPress maintenance is not hard or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website or blog. If you do not want to learn how to do WP 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 must do after making sure that you are still breathing!

If you don’t want to back up your site manually, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Backup, Duplicate & Keep Your WP Web Sites Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

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

The mass brute force botnet attack on WordPress sites was mostly an attempt to compromise website admin panels by exploiting sites that used “admin” as their username.

For reasons of website security, never set up a WordPress site with the username admin. This is the first area hackers will test. If your blog’s user name is “admin”, then change this immediately.

We have created a detailed step-by-step tutorial created especially for WP admin users on how to change your WordPress admin username here: Changing Your WordPress Username From Admin To Another Username

Security Measure #4 – Your Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software continually and persistently tries to guess the right password and username character string that will unlock your website.

Unless you put some measure in place to block the brute force attack (see further below for a couple of simple and effective ways to do this), the “bot” will just keep attacking your site until it eventually breaks into your admin area.

Weak passwords, therefore, become very easy targets for brute-force attacks. Make sure that you change your password combination to a string that contains at least eight characters long, and that includes upper and lowercase letters, and add a few “special” characters (e.g. %, #, *, etc).

Roboform is a password management software that lets you generate strong passwords …

(Roboform is a password management program you can use to help you generate strong login passwords)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial for non-technical WP admin users on how to change your password, go here: How To Reset Your Login Password

Security Measure #5 – Prevent Access To The 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.php)

If a hacker breaks into your WordPress site, they will typically search for the 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 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 attacks and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, prevent people getting to 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 Blog Installation Files

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

These files are not required after installation. If you don’t want to delete these files, then just rename them.

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

Hackers search for vulnerabilities they can exploit in older WordPress versions, including outdated versions of WordPress themes and plugins.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your WordPress Theme Editor

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

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor via the dashboard menu)

This means that anyone logging into your site’s admin can see and make changes to your WordPress theme template files, or create mayhem on your site.

If you want to prevent unauthorized people from being able to access your 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 Site’s Uploads Directory

The “uploads” directory stores all the media files that get uploaded to your blog.

By default, this folder is visible to all users online. All a person needs to do to see all of the contents stored in the “uploads” directory is visit the directory using their web browser …

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

If any files stored in his folder have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers or malicious users, this can compromise the security of your website.

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, 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 get professional assistance if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Install WordPress Security Plugins

There are some great WordPress security plugins available that specifically address common security issues faced by WordPress website owners, such as preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to vital information about 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 security plugin that does a comprehensive job of scanning, fixing and preventing potential issues that could lead to hackers accessing your files and causing damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – total security plugin for WordPress)

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

Another plugin you may want to consider using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender Security Product Suite For WordPress Websites & Blogs

(Blog Defender Security Product Suite)

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 web site for potential security weaknesses …

And then shows you how to quickly fix these …

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

WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress software, WordPress plugins and WP themes, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to attacks by hackers and bots.

Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your site.

As a final reminder, below is the advice given by an expert on web security to all WordPress users following 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 of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this article 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, please remember to subscribe to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications via email whenever we publish new articles and tutorials on WordPress security and tutorials about new WordPress security plugins.

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