When you are the most popular content management system in the world and the preferred online publishing platform used by millions of businesses and loved by thousands of web developers and web 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, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to large-scale brute-force attacks.

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

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)

There are many ways hackers try to break into WordPress sites. One of these is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. This is done with scripts and tools that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login permutations in minutes.

If you’re using obvious login details, your site could be an easy target for hackers.

This is called a “brute force” login 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.org)

A “Botnet” is a network of private computers that have been infected with malicious code, which are then controlled remotely as a group, often without the unsuspecting computer owners’ knowledge or awareness.

Botnets are normally used used to blast out mass spam emails from the infected computers of unsuspecting users.

Below is a screenshot taken from an internet security monitoring site showing the locations of the command centers of ZeuS – a botnet that has been actively compromising computer networks all around the globe since 2009 …

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

These ongoing botnet attacks were well organized and highly distributed. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by a number of webhosting companies just in the initial attack, when millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress users admin areas took place. The large-scale attack then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked each day.

Coverage of the April 2013 worldwide brute force botnet attack was reported by all of the major webhosting companiesand leading technology media publications, such as TechNews Daily, Forbes, PC Magazine, Tech Crunch, BBC News, and even on the official US Department of Homeland Security website …

(Being the world’s most used content management system makes WordPress an obvious target for hacking attacks)

Does This Mean We Should Stop Using WordPress?

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

To understand what makes WordPress a very secure platform for websites, read this article: Is WordPress Secure? What Every Blog Owner Needs To Know About WordPress Security

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

Mike Little, one of the co-founders of WordPress, 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)

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

Every web site with a vulnerability presents an opportunity to hackers. No blog Large, medium and small business web sites, personal blogs, government sites … even websites owned by web security and anti-hacking experts can and have been targeted.

If a malicious user can exploit a web software flaw, that site can then be used as a “bot” in a planned cyber attack against larger and more highly-valued sites.

Additional undesirable results of being hacked and your site security compromised include being blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links promoting things like online meds, cheap offers on brand names, etc. in your content and page title and descriptions, redirecting visitors to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malware on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasty things.

The truth is that brute-force software bots are probably searching for weaknesses and trying to hack into your site while you are reading this article. Whether they will break in or not, depends on how hard you have made it for hackers and botnets to keep trying until they either can work out how to get in, or decide to look for a less protected target.

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

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

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

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

(Hackertarget – WP 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, hackers can too.

(Source: BlogDefender website)

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 all be useful information to hackers, as this can inform them about any holes or weaknesses, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog runs on WordPress and you’re not preventive steps to harden your site, then it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point in time, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these attacks are systematically hitting WordPress sites around the world!

Typically, when a site is hacked, website owners will find themselves completely “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been interfered with or even that their content has been entirely wiped out. Typically, sites will be infected with malicious software without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To avoid the heartache (and significant financial loss) of having your site being hacked into, we have listed below ten simple, yet essential and effective security checks that will help to prevent your WordPress site from brute-force attacks.

Note: Some of the recommended steps below require some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress and/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 a professional WordPress service provider for help.

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

Get in touch with your hosting company and ask them exactly what security precautions they offer to protect your site from being attacked, and what is done to make sure that your server files and data get backed up.

It’s important to make sure that your webhosting service regularly backs up your sites and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily get back your site.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Regular WordPress Backups And Keep Your Site Frequently Maintained

You should never rely only on your hosting provider 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 religiously performing a complete 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 WordPress data and files are free of errors, optimized and backed up,
• All software, themes and plugins are up-to-date,
• etc …

A full WordPress maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WordPress website backed up and up-to-date is vitally important for WordPress security. Image source: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WP site frequently 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. If you don’t want to learn how to do WordPress maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure it gets done. Backing up your site 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 files manually, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Duplicate And Protect Your WP Website With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

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

The brute-force attack on WordPress is mostly attempting to compromise site administrator panels by exploiting WP installations with “admin” as the 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 user name is “admin”, change it immediately.

We have created a simple step-by-step tutorial on how to change your login username here: Changing Your WordPress Admin Username

Security Measure #4 – Make Sure Your Password Is Secure

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software continually and persistently tries to guess the right username and password character string that will give them access to your website.

Unless some measure is put into place to stop the brute force attack (see further below for a couple of simple and effective suggestions for doing this), the “bot” will just continue to attack your site until it eventually gets access.

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

You can use a password software tool like Roboform to help you generate strong login passwords …

(You can use a password program like Roboform to generate difficult passwords)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial for non-technical admin users that shows you how to change your admin password, go here: What To Do If You Need To Reset Your Password

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

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

(wp-config.php file)

If hackers break into your WordPress site, they will look 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 someone 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 accessible. 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 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 remove these files, just rename them.

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

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your WordPress Theme Editor

WordPress comes with a built-in editor feature that lets the administrator edit plugin and theme files from the dashboard.

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

(The WordPress theme editor is accessible using the admin menu)

The WordPress theme feature lets anyone accessing your site’s admin area view and change your 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 editing your wp-config.php file.

Security Measure #9 – Prevent Access To The Site’s Uploads Directory

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

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

(WordPress uploads directory)

If any directories in your website have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers, someone could upload unauthorized file types to your site.

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, 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 seek professional help if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – WordPress Security Plugins

Several WordPress security plugins are available that will address most 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 injections of code into files, etc.

Many 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 damaging your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – WP complete security software)

SecureScanPro is easy to install and easy to use, and does a great job of addressing most of the security areas that WordPress users need to address.

Another plugin you may want to consider using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite

(Blog Defender WordPress Security Solution)

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

BlogDefender scans you WordPress site for security weaknesses …

And then shows you how to fix these quickly …

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

WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress installation, WP plugins and themes, 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, web security 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 large-scale 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 very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this 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 consult a WordPress security specialist, or search for a 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 reviews of new security plugins and solutions.

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