Powering millions of sites around the world makes WordPress a frequent target for attempted hacking attacks.

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

These attacks were caused by botnets (computers infected with malware and programmed to attack other sites with security vulnerabilities).

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 will attempt to break into a WordPress site is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. This can be achieved with software programs that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login permutations in minutes.

If you’re using weak login details, your website could be easily hacked by persistent attempts to guess your site’s login details.

This is called a “brute force” attack.

What Is A Botnet?

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 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 even being aware that this is going on.

Botnets are often used to blast out mass spam emails.

Below is a screenshot taken from an internet security monitoring site showing the locations of the command centers of a botnet that has been actively infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009 called “Zeus” …

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

These were well organized and highly distributed botnet attacks on WordPress sites. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several hosting companies in the initial attack alone, when millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress site admin areas took place. The large-scale brute-force attacks continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress blogs being hacked per day.

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

(Powering millions of sites worldwide makes WordPress a target for hackers)

Does This Mean We Should Stop Using WordPress?

No. In fact, there are lots of great reasons why you should choose WordPress if you are concerned about the security of your online presence.

To understand what makes WordPress a very secure web platform, see this article: Why WordPress Is A Secure Platform For Websites –

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

Mike Little, the co-founder of WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, made this comment 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 Blog From Being Brute Force Attacked – 10 Security Checks

Every website or blog with a vulnerability offers value to hackers. If you think that the information in your site offers little to no value to hackers, think again. Business sites, personal blogs, government websites … even web sites owned by online security experts can and have been targeted.

If a hacker can exploit a web software flaw, your website or blog can then be employed to attack more valued websites.

Additional undesirable effects of being hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by Google, having stealthy spam links promoting things like online meds, porn, 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 lots of other nasties.

The truth is that brute-force software bots are very likely trying to break into your blog while you are reading this article. Whether they can break into your site successfully depends on how hard you will make it for hackers to continue trying until they either find how to get access, or are forced to give up and go look for a more vulnerable target.

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

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

(WP Security Scan Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the scan returns various results and details about your website …

(WordPress 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 about your WordPress site, then hackers can too.

(Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)

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 be valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any holes or weaknesses, especially in older versions.

If your website is driven by WordPress and you are not proactive steps to bullet-proof your site, it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point in time, someone will attempt to hack your website, because these brute-force attacks are systematically hitting WordPress installations all the world!

When a website is compromised, site owners can find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been altered or even that their content has been entirely wiped out. Typically, compromised sites will become infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner even being aware that a breach has taken place.

To help avoid the heartache and frustration (and potential loss of valuable business data) of having your website being hacked into, below are 10 simple, yet essential and effective security measures that will help to prevent your WordPress site from being brute force attacked.

Note: A few of the measures shown below need some technical skills to modify core WordPress and server files. If you are not technical-minded, 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 Host

Contact your web host and ask them what precautions have been put in place to protect your site from being attacked, and what they do to make sure that your site files get regularly backed up.

It is important to make sure that your hosting service is backing up your sites and that, if disaster strikes, you can quickly and easily get back your files and data.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Complete WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Or Blog Regularly Updated

You should never rely just on your web host for 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 full site maintenance routine on a regular basis (e.g. daily, weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

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

A full WP site maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WordPress web site regularly backed up and up-to-date is vitally important for WordPress security. Source: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important it is to maintain your WP website frequently 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 site maintenance yourself, pay someone to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your site is the second 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 a number of free and paid plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Duplicate & Protect Your WordPress Web Sites With Backup Creator WP Plugin

Security Measure #3 – Do Not Use “Admin” As Your Username

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

For security reasons, avoid installing a WordPress site with the username “admin”. This is the first thing hackers will test. If your blog’s user name is “admin”, then change this immediately.

For a step-by-step tutorial for WP admin users on how to change your username, go here: How To Change Your Admin Username In WordPress To A More Secure User Name

Security Measure #4 – Change Your 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 give them entry to your site.

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 persist in attacking your site until it eventually “cracks” the code.

Passwords that are easy to guess, therefore, become really easy targets for attacks. Make sure that you change your password combination to something that contains at least eight characters long, and that includes upper and lowercase letters, and add a few “special” characters (^%$#&@*).

Roboform is a password management tool you can use to generate strong login passwords …

(You can use a password management program like Roboform to create unbreakable passwords)

For a step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to change your WordPress admin password, go here: Changing Login Passwords In WordPress

Security Measure #5 – Prevent Access To Your wp-config.php File

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

(WordPress WP Config file)

If hackers break into your WordPress site, they will normally search for your 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 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, 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

Rename or delete the install.php, upgrade.php and readme.html files from your server.

You can remove these files after installation. If you don’t want to remove these files, just rename them.

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

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your Theme Editor

WordPress installations come with a built-in editor feature that lets you edit plugin and theme code from the dashboard area.

You can access the WordPress Theme Editor by selecting Appearance > Editor in your main menu …

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor via the admin menu)

The WordPress theme editor lets anyone accessing your site view and edit your WordPress theme templates, or create havoc on your site.

To prevent people from accessing the 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 – Prevent Access To The Site’s Uploads Directory

The WordPress “uploads” folder contains all the media files that get uploaded to your website.

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

(WordPress uploads directory)

If any directories in your website have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers, anyone can upload unauthorized file types to 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 blank file named “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to use a professional 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 will address many common security issues faced by WordPress website owners, such as preventing hackers from accessing your site, protecting your website from botnets, 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 issues that could lead to hackers accessing your files and causing damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – complete security software solution for WordPress)

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

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

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender)

Blog Defender 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 web site are …

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

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

WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like making sure that your WP software, WP plugins and WP themes are kept updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.

Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, website 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 web security to all WordPress users following the large-scale 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 very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, this information has given you the initial steps you need to take 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 WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, don’t forget to subscribe to WPCompendium.org to be notified via email when we publish new tips on WordPress security and tutorials about new security plugins.

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