WordPress is frequently the target of attacks by hackers.

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

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

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

About 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’s administration login username and password. To achieve this, hackers use software tools that automatically tries to guess hundreds of possible logins in minutes.

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

This is called a “brute force” 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)

A “Botnet” is a network of private computers that have been infected with malicious scripts or code, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, typically without the computer owners even being aware that this is taking place.

Botnets are often used to send mass spam emails.

The screenshot below was 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. Image: SecureList.com)

These were highly distributed and well organized attacks. 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 site admin areas occurred. The worldwide attack continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress blogs being hacked each day.

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

(WordPress is frequently the target of attacks by hackers, due to its popularity)

Does This Mean We Should Stop Using WordPress?

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

We explain why WordPress is a secure web platform in this article: Is WordPress Secure?

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

Mike Little, one of the co-founders of WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, made the following 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)

Preventing Your WordPress Site From Being Brute-Force Attacked – 10 Security Measures

Every website or blog with a vulnerability offers potential value to hackers. An unsecured web site not only presents hackers opportunities to improve their hacking skills and win “respect” amongst their peers, but it can also acts as a platform for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, distributing malware and participating in information theft.

If hackers can exploit a way to compromise the control of your website, your website can then be employed as a “bot” to attack larger and more valuable web sites.

Additional undesirable impacts of being hacked include getting blacklisted by search engines, having stealthy spam links advertising things like gambling, porn, etc. inserted 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 harsh reality is that software-driven bots are probably looking for vulnerabilities and trying to hack into your web site while you are reading these very words. Whether they can do this successfully depends on how challenging you will make things for hackers and bots to continue persisting until they discover a way to break in, or are forced to 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 check …

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

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

(website security scan results. Screenshot image: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you can see all of this information about your blog, hackers can too.

(Product image: BlogDefender website)

The ability to see what 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 valuable information to hackers, as this can inform them about any security weaknesses, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog is powered by WordPress and you’re not taking steps to bullet-proof your site, then we can practically guarantee that, at some point in time, someone will attempt to hack your installation, because these brute-force attacks are systematically targeting WordPress sites worldwide!

Whenever a site is broken into, 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 even that their content has been completely wiped out. Often, sites will become infected with malicious scripts without the owner even being aware that this has happened.

To help avoid the heartache that comes with discovering that your site has been hacked into, we have listed below ten essential and effective security measures that will help to protect your WordPress site from being brute force attacked.

Note: Some of the steps below require some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress and/or 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 professional WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Webhosting Service Provider

Contact your host and ask them what security measures they have put in place to help prevent your site from botnet attacks, and what is done to ensure that your site files get regularly backed up.

Make sure that your hosting provider regularly backs up your server files and that, if anything goes wrong, you can easily get back your files.

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

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

A proper 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 software, plugins and themes are up-to-date,
• etc …

A full WP site maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP website fully 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 WP installation completely backed up and updated 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 do not want to learn how to do WordPress site maintenance yourself, pay a professional to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your site is the second most important thing you should do after making sure that you are still breathing!

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

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

The brute-force botnet attack on WordPress sites was mostly attempting to compromise site administrator panels by exploiting WP sites that used “admin” as their username.

For security reasons, 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”, you will need to change it immediately.

We have created a simple tutorial for non-technical WordPress users that shows you how to change your login username here: How To Change Your WordPress Admin Username 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 username and password characters that will give the hacker entry to your site.

Unless some measure is put into place to prevent the brute-force attack (see further below for a couple of simple and effective ways to do this), the “bot” will just persist in attacking your site until it eventually gets access.

Passwords that are easy to guess, therefore, make really easy targets for hacking attacks. Make sure that you change your password to a string containing at least eight or nine characters long, with upper and lowercase letters, combined with a few “special” characters (e.g. %, #, *, etc).

You can use a password management tool like Roboform to generate unbreakable passwords …

(Roboform is a password management software you can use to create strong login passwords)

For a tutorial for non-technical WordPress users that shows you how to change your WordPress password, go here: How To Change Passwords

Security Measure #5 – Prevent The wp-config.php File From Being Accessible

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

(WP Config file)

If a hacker breaks into your website, they will typically search for the wp-config.php file, because this is the file that 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.

To protect your WordPress site from attacks and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, you must prevent your wp-config.php file from being easily accessible. 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 WordPress 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 remove these files, then just rename them.

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

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your Theme Editor

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

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor using the dashboard menu)

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

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

Security Measure #9 – Protect Your WordPress Uploads Folder

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

Normally, this folder is visible to anyone online. All someone has to do to see all of the contents stored in the “uploads” folder is navigate to your directory using their web browser …

(WordPress has an uploads folder where media content is stored)

If any directories in your website have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users, this could threaten the security of your website.

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 get professional assistance if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Use WordPress Security Plugins

Several security plugins for WordPress are available that specifically address many common security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing hackers from accessing vital areas of your site, protecting your site from malicious scripts, preventing injections of code into files, 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 potential issues that could lead to hackers accessing your files and damaging your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – WordPress total security software)

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

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

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender Security Product Suite For WordPress Websites & Blogs)

This product 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 holes in your web site are …

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

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

WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like ensuring that your WP core files, plugins and themes are kept up-to-date, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to attacks by hackers and bots.

No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, web 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 mass 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, WordPress security is of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this 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 consult a professional 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 via email whenever we publish new information on WordPress security and tutorials about new WordPress security plugins.

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