WordPress powers millions of sites worldwide, which makes it an obvious target for attempted attacks by malicious users.

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

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

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

Brute Force Attacks – An Overview

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 will attempt to break into WordPress sites is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. This can be done with software tools and scripts that automatically tries to guess hundreds of possible login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using obvious usernames and passwords that are easy to guess, your website can be an easy target for hackers.

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/botnet)

”Botnets” are networks of computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious scripts or software code, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, typically without the unsuspecting computer owners even being aware of this.

Botnets are typically used to blast out 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 infecting 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. Image source: SecureList.com)

These were highly distributed and well organized botnet attacks. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several webhosting companies just in the initial attack, when millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress user administration areas took place. The large-scale attack continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress blogs being hacked every day.

Coverage of the April 2013 brute-force botnet attack was widely reported in all of 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 often is targeted by hackers)

Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Use WordPress Anymore?

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

To learn what makes WordPress a very secure web platform, see this article: Are Open Source Web Platforms Like WordPress Secure?

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

Mike Little, the co-founder of WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, said this about the botnet 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)

How To Protect Your WordPress Website From Being Brute-Force Attacked – 10 Security Checks

Every website or blog with a vulnerability can be seen as a potential opportunity to hackers. A compromised blog presents malicious users with a valuable resource to launch DDoS attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft.

If a malicious user can find a way to gain any form of control of your blog, your web site can then be employed as part of a larger network of “bots” to target more highly-valued sites.

Additional undesirable results of having your site hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by Google, having spammy links advertising things like online meds, cheap offers on brand names, etc. in your content and meta data, malicious redirects to phishing sites and other websites, data exfiltration (stealing customer details or Personal Identifiable Information from your web applications), and lots of other nasty things.

The reality is that software-driven bots are probably trying to break into your website as you are reading these very words. Whether they will do this successfully or not, will depend on how hard you can make it for them to continue persisting until they can work out a way to break in, or decide to look for an easier target.

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

If you visit Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …

(Hackertarget – WordPress Security Check Image source: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the test will display a number of results and details about your website setup …

(Hackertarget – WordPress security scan results. Source: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Image source: Blog Defender)

Being able to see what version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories can all be useful information to hackers, as these can inform them about exploitable security vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your website is powered by WordPress and you’re not precautionary steps to bullet-proof your site, then it’s practically guaranteed that, at some time in the near future, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these brute-force attacks are systematically targeting WordPress sites worldwide!

Whenever a website is hacked, website owners can 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, most compromised sites will be infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

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 prevent your WordPress site from brute-force botnet attacks.

Note: A few of the measures listed below need some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress and/or server files. If you are not technical-minded, 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 – Contact Your Webhosting Provider

Contact your host and ask them exactly what measures are in place to protect your site from botnet attacks, and what they do to make sure that your server files are being regularly backed up.

Make sure that your hosting provider backs up your server files and that, if anything should happen, you can easily recover your files.

Security Measure #2 – Back Up Your WordPress Data And Files And Keep Your Website Or Blog Regularly Up-To-Date

Never rely on your hosting service for site backups. Instead, learn how to manage your WordPress site or get this service done for you and maintain a habit of religiously performing a full site maintenance routine on a frequent basis (e.g. weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

A complete WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A full WordPress site maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP site fully backed up and updated is vitally important for WordPress security. Image: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WordPress website or blog fully backed up and updated. WordPress 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 do not want to learn how to do WP site maintenance yourself, pay someone 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 your heart is still beating!

If you don’t want to back up your site manually, there are many free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone And Protect Your WP Web Sites With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

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

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

For security purposes, avoid setting up sites with the username admin. This is the first area hackers will test. If your blog’s user name is admin, you will need to change it immediately.

We have created a detailed tutorial that shows you how to change your username here: How To Change Your WP Username From Admin To A Different Username

Security Measure #4 – Change Your Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when a malicious script persistently tries to guess the right username and password character string that will give the hacker access to your site.

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

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

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

(You can use a password software tool like Roboform to help you generate very secure passwords)

We have created a simple tutorial that shows you how to change your login password here: How To Change The Login Password

Security Measure #5 – Prevent Access To 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 hackers break into your website, they will typically search for 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.

In order 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 accessed. 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 Installation Files

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

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 Installation, Themes & Plugins Up-To-Date

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

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

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

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

This allows anyone accessing your blog’s admin area to see and edit your WordPress theme templates, and create havoc 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 editing your wp-config.php file.

Security Measure #9 – Protect Your Site’s Uploads Folder

The “uploads” directory contains all the media files that get uploaded to your site.

By default, this folder is visible to online users. All someone has to do to see the contents stored in your “uploads” folder is navigate to your directory using a web browser …

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

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

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, uploading 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 consult a professional 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 many common security issues faced by WordPress site owners, such as preventing hackers from gaining access to vital information about your site, protecting your site from malicious software, preventing unauthorized file uploads, etc.

Most WordPress plugins address some but not all areas of WordPress security. One WordPress security plugin that seems to do 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 – WP security software solution)

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

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

Blog Defender Security Suite

(Blog Defender Security Suite)

This product is a package 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 website are …

And lets you fix these quickly …

If you don’t want to invest in 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 simple maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress software, plugins and WP themes, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to malicious by hackers and bots.

No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your sites is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.

As a final reminder of the importance of keeping your websites protected, below is the advice given by a security expert to all WordPress users after the large-scale brute-force attacks by botnets 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, website security is very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the above article has shown you what to do to keep your WordPress site protected from brute-force attacks. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please seek help from a professional WordPress security specialist, or search for a WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

We also recommend subscribing to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications via email whenever we publish new tutorials on WordPress security and reviews of WordPress security plugins.

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