WordPress powers millions of websites worldwide, which makes it a target for hackers.

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

These attacks were caused by infected computer networks programmed to attack other installations, also commonly known as “botnets”.

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. This is done using scripts and tools that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login permutations in minutes.

If you’re using easy-to-guess login details, your website could be an easy target for hackers.

This is called a “brute-force” attack.

Botnet Definition

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)

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

Botnets are normally used used to send out 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 …

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

These botnet attacks are well organized and highly distributed. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several webhosting companies in the initial attack, when the web was flooded with millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress site administration areas. The worldwide attack continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress sites being hacked every day.

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

(Being the world’s most popular content management system makes WordPress a target for attacks by hackers)

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

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

We explain what makes WordPress a very secure web platform in this article: Is WordPress Secure?

It’s important to note that, in the case of the large-scale brute force botnet attack described above, there was no WordPress vulnerability being exploited (the same script was also attacking sites built using other 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)

How To Protect Your WordPress Blog From Being Brute-Force Attacked – Ten Security Checks

Every website or blog with a security vulnerability offers some value to hackers. An unsecured web site not only offers new hackers opportunities to improve their hacking skills and claim “bragging rights” from their peers, but it can also serve as a resource for denial of service attacks, spreading malware and participating in information theft.

If a hacker can discover a web security flaw, your site can then be used to attack other valuable web sites.

Additional undesirable results of being hacked include being blacklisted by search engines, having stealthy spam links advertising things like casinos, cheap offers on brand names, etc. inserted into your content, malicious redirects to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious programs on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasty things.

The harsh reality is that software-driven bots are looking for vulnerabilities and trying to hack into your website right now. Whether they will hack into your site or not, depends on how difficult you will make it for hackers to continue trying until they discover a way to get access, or are forced to give up and go look for a more vulnerable 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 …

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

You will see that the check will yield a number of results and details about your site setup …

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

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

(Source: Blog Defender)

Being able 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 in your site can be valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about exploitable holes or weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their software versions.

If your site or blog runs on WordPress and you’re not taking steps to bolster the security of 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 hitting WordPress installations around the world!

Whenever a site is hacked, webmasters will find themselves completely “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been vandalized or even that their content has been completely wiped out. Typically, most compromised sites will be infected with malicious software or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

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 protect your WordPress site from being brute-force attacked.

Note: Some of the steps below need some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress or server files. If you are not technical, 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 Host

Get in touch with your hosting service provider and ask them exactly what precautions are in place to help prevent your site from brute-force attacks, and what they are doing to ensure that your WordPress sites get backed up.

It is important to make sure that your hosting provider is regularly backing up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily get back your files.

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

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

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A full WordPress site maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WordPress site regularly backed up and updated is vitally important for WordPress security. Screenshot image: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important maintaining your WordPress installation backed up and updated is. WordPress maintenance is not hard to do or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website. If you don’t want to learn how to do WP site maintenance yourself, pay a professional to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your website is the second most important thing you must do after making sure that your heart is still beating!

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Back Up, Clone And Protect Your WP Web Sites With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

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 admin panels and gain access to sites by exploiting WP installations using “admin” as their username.

For reasons of website security, avoid setting up WordPress sites with the username admin. This is the first area hackers will test. If your site’s username is “admin”, you should change this immediately.

For a detailed tutorial created especially for WP admin users that shows you how to change your login username, go here: Changing Your Admin User Name In WordPress To A More Secure User Name

Security Measure #4 – Your Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software continually and persistently hits a login or password field with different character strings trying to guess the right combination 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 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, make really easy targets for hacking attacks. Make sure that you change your password combination to a string that contains at least 8 characters long, with upper and lowercase letters, combined with “special” characters (^%$#&@*).

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

(Roboform is a password management software you can use to generate very secure passwords)

We have created a detailed step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to change your password here: What To Do If You Need To Reset Passwords

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.php file)

If a hacker breaks into your WordPress website, they will try to access the wp-config.php file, because this is the file that contains your WordPress database details, security keys, etc. Getting access to this information would allow a hacker 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 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 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 – Update Your WordPress Software, Themes And Plugins

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

WordPress installations come with a built-in editor feature that allows the administrator to edit plugin and theme code inside 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 via the admin menu)

The WordPress theme editor feature allows anyone accessing your site’s admin area to view and change your theme templates, and cause mayhem on your site.

If you want to prevent people from accessing your 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” directory stores all the media files that get uploaded to your WordPress site.

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

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

If any files stored in his folder have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers or malicious users, this could 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, 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 help if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – WordPress Security Plugins

A number of great WordPress security plugins are available that specifically address many common security issues WordPress site owners face, such as preventing hackers from gaining access to vital information about your site, protecting your files from malicious software, preventing unauthorized file uploads, 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 potential issues that could lead to hackers accessing your files and causing irreparable damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – WordPress complete security software)

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

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

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender Security Plugin For WordPress Blogs)

Blog Defender is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.

BlogDefender scans you web site for security weaknesses …

And lets you fix these quickly, easily and inexpensively …

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

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

Regardless of the kind 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 one last reminder, below is the advice given by an expert on website security to all WordPress users following the global 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 of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the above information has given you the initial guidelines and direction you need 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 WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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

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