When you are the most popular CMS platform in the world and the preferred online publishing platform 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 from hackers wanting to score a “big win”.

In early 2013 a mass brute force attack began hitting WordPress installations on virtually every web host in existence around the world.

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

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

What Are 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)

There are many ways hackers try to break into a WordPress site. One of these is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. To do this, hackers use software tools that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login permutations in minutes.

If you’re using predictable usernames and weak passwords that are easy to guess, your site can be easily hacked by a malicious script’s persistent attempts to work out your site’s login details.

This is called a “brute force” login attack.

Botnets – What Are They?

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)

”Botnets” are networks of computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious code or scripts, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, typically without the computer owners’ knowledge or awareness.

Botnets are typically used to blast mass spam emails.

The screenshot below was taken from an online security monitoring site showing the locations of the command centers of a botnet that has been actively compromising computer networks all around the globe since 2009 called “Zeus” …

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

These were well organized and highly distributed botnet 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 occurred. The mass brute force attacks then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress blogs being hacked each day.

Coverage of the April 2013 large-scale brute-force attack was widely reported in all the major webhosting companies, as well as the leading technology media publications, such as TechNews Daily, Forbes, Tech Crunch, PC Magazine, BBC News, and even on the official US Department of Homeland Security website …

(Powering millions of websites and blogs around the world makes WordPress a target for attempted hacking attacks)

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

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

We explain why WordPress is a secure web platform in this article: Are Open Source Web Platforms Like WordPress Secure?

It’s important to understand that, in the case of April 2013 brute force botnet attack described above, was no specific vulnerability in WordPress 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, 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)

Protecting Your WordPress Blog From Brute Force Attacks – Ten Security Points

You may think that your site is of little value to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, every website is an opportunity to gain some advantage at your expense.

If hackers can hack and gain remote control of your web site, that website or blog can then be used as a “bot” in a planned cyber attack against more valuable websites.

Additional undesirable consequences of having your website hacked and your site security compromised include being blacklisted by Google, having spammy links advertising things like casinos, porn, etc. inserted in your content, redirecting visitors to phishing sites or other websites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious software on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasty things.

The reality is that software-driven bots are probably trying to break into your website or blog at this very moment. Whether they can be successful will depend on how hard you will make it for hackers to continue persisting until they find a way to get access, or give up and decide to look for a less secure target.

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

If you visit Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security check …

(WordPress Security Check Image source: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Hackertarget – WordPress security check results. Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Product image source: Blog Defender)

Being able 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 can be potentially useful information to hackers, as this informs them about exploitable holes or weaknesses, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog runs on WordPress and you are not precautionary steps to bolster the security of 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 worldwide!

Typically, when a site is hacked, webmasters will discover much to their dismay that they have been “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been interfered with or that everything has been entirely wiped out. Often, compromised sites will become infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner even being aware of it.

To avoid the heartache that comes with having your website or blog being hacked into, we have listed below ten essential and effective security checks that will help to prevent your WordPress site from being attacked by brute force botnet hacking attempts.

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

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

Get in touch with your host and ask them what security systems have been put in place to protect your site from being attacked, and what they are doing to ensure that your WordPress sites get regularly backed up.

Check that your web host backs up your sites and that, if anything happens, you can quickly and easily recover your files and data.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Complete WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Frequently Updated

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

A complete WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A proper WP maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WordPress site completely backed up and up-to-date. WordPress site maintenance is not hard to do or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website. 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 should do after making sure that your heart is still beating!

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Back Up, Copy & Keep Your WordPress Site Protected With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

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

the worldwide brute force attack on WordPress is mostly attempting to compromise site admin panels by exploiting WP sites with “admin” as the user name.

For security purposes, don’t set up sites with the username admin. This is the first area of potential vulnerability hackers will test. If your blog’s username is admin, then make sure you change this immediately.

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial created especially for WP admin users that shows you how to change your admin username, go here: How To Change Your WP User Name From Admin To Another User Name

Security Measure #4 – Choose A Strong Password

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

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

Passwords that are easy to guess, therefore, become really easy targets for bot attacks. Make sure that you change your password to something that is at least 8 characters long, and that includes upper and lowercase letters, combined with “special” characters (%^#$@&*).

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

(Roboform is a password tool you can use to generate strong login passwords)

We have created a simple tutorial for WP admin users that shows you how to change your WordPress password here: How To Change Passwords

Security Measure #5 – Secure Your WP Config File

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

(wp-config.php file)

If hackers break into your WordPress site, they will typically try to access 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 them to change anything in your database, create a user account, upload files and take control of your site.

To protect your WordPress site from being attacked and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, you must prevent your wp-config.php file from being easily accessed. 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

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

These files can be deleted after installation. If you don’t want to delete these files, then just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Upgrade Your WordPress Installation, Plugins And Themes

Hackers look for vulnerabilities in previous versions of WordPress that can be exploited, including out-of-date versions of plugins and themes.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your WordPress Theme Editor

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

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor using the WordPress dashboard menu)

The WordPress theme editor allows anyone accessing your site’s admin to see and edit your WP theme template files, and cause mayhem on your site.

To prevent people from being able to access 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 Site’s Uploads Folder

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

Normally, this folder is visible to online users. All a person needs to do to view the contents in your “uploads” folder is visit your directory using their web browser …

(WordPress uploads folder)

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

Protecting your directories will prevent online users 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 blank file named “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to get professional help if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Security Plugins

There are some great security plugins for WordPress available that specifically address most security issues faced by WordPress website owners, such as preventing hackers from gaining access to vital information about your site, protecting your files from malicious exploits, preventing injections of code into files, etc.

Many WordPress plugins address some but not all areas of WordPress security. One 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 software solution for WordPress)

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

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

Blog Defender Security Plugin

(Blog Defender Security Solution)

Blog Defender is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.

BlogDefender shows you where the security weaknesses in your WordPress site are …

And lets you fix these quickly …

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

WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting simple 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, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your site.

As one last reminder of the importance of keeping your websites protected, below is the advice given by a security expert to all WordPress users after the worldwide brute-force attacks on WordPress in April 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, the above article has shown you what to do to prevent brute force attacks on your WordPress site. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please seek help from a WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

We also recommend subscribing to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications whenever we publish new articles and tutorials on WordPress security and tutorials about new WordPress security plugins and solutions.

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