WordPress powers millions of websites and blogs around the world, making it a frequent target for hacking.

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

These attacks were caused by botnets (computer networks infected with malware and programmed to attack other installations with security vulnerabilities).

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

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 admin’s login username and password. To achieve this, hackers use scripts and tools that can work through hundreds of possible login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using weak user names and passwords that are easy to guess, your site can be easily hacked by the script’s repeated attempts to work out your site’s login details.

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)

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, often without the computer owners even being aware that this is happening.

Botnets are typically used to send out mass spam emails from the infected computers of compromised user accounts.

Below is a screenshot 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 world since 2009 …

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

The ongoing botnet attacks were well organized and highly distributed. 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 site admin areas took place. The attacks continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress sites being hacked each day.

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

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

Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Use WordPress Anymore?

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

To learn why WordPress is a secure platform for websites, read this article: How Secure Is WordPress?

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

Mike Little, one of the co-founders of WordPress, said this 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 – Ten Security Checks

You may think that the information in your website or blog has nothing to offer to hackers, but the reality is that every website is valuable to a malicious user.

If a hacker can find a software security flaw, that web site can then be used as a “bot” in a planned cyberattack against more valued websites.

Additional undesirable impacts of having your website hacked include being blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links advertising things like gambling, porn, etc. inserted in your content and meta data, redirecting visitors to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious software on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasty things.

The reality is that software-driven bots are very likely looking for exploits and trying to break into your web site right now. Whether they will break into your site will depend on how challenging you can make things for hackers and botnets to keep persisting until they either can find how to get access, or are forced to give up and go look for an easier target.

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

Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security check …

(Hackertarget – WordPress Security Scan Source: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)

You will see that the check will return various results and information about your site …

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

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

(Source: Blog Defender)

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 in your site are all valuable information to hackers, as these can inform them about exploitable security vulnerabilities, especially where the owners haven’t updated their sites.

If your site or blog is driven by WordPress and you are not taking 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 hitting WordPress installations all the world!

Typically, when a website is compromised, webmasters can find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been altered or even that their content has been completely wiped out. Typically, sites will become infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To help avoid the heartache and aggravation (and potential financial loss) of discovering that your site has been hacked into, below are 10 simple, yet essential and effective security checks that will help to prevent your WordPress site from being attacked by brute force botnets.

Note: A few of the recommended measures listed below need some technical skills to modify core WordPress or server files. If you have no web coding skills, or don’t want to mess around with code on your site, then ask your web host or a professional WordPress technical provider for help.

***

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

Get in touch with your webhosting provider and ask them exactly what security precautions are in place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what is done to make sure that your WordPress sites get backed up.

It’s important to make sure that your host backs up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can quickly and easily get back your files and data.

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

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

A complete WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A full WP maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how important maintaining your WordPress web site fully backed up and up-to-date is. WP 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 WP 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 must do after making sure that you are still breathing!

If you don’t want to back up your data manually, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Duplicate And Keep Your WordPress Site Protected With Backup Creator WP Plugin

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

the worldwide brute force attack on WordPress is mostly attempting to compromise site administrator panels and gain access to sites by exploiting sites using “admin” as the account name.

For reasons of website security, avoid installing sites with the username admin. This is the first area hackers will test. If your site’s username is admin, then make sure you change it immediately.

We have created a detailed tutorial for non-technical WordPress users on how to change your login username here: Changing Your Admin User Name In WordPress

Security Measure #4 – Choose A Strong Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when a malicious script continually hits a login or password field with different character strings trying to guess the right login combination that will unlock your site.

Unless some measure is put into place to block the brute force attack from happening (see further below for a couple of simple and effective suggestions for doing 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 to something containing at least 8 or 9 characters long, with upper and lowercase letters, and “special” characters (e.g. ^, #, &, etc).

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

(Roboform is a password management software that lets you easily create different secure login passwords)

We have created a simple tutorial on how to change your admin password here: How To Change Your Password

Security Measure #5 – Secure Your WP Config File

The wp-config.php file allows WordPress to communicate with the database to store and retrieve data and is used to define advanced options for WordPress.

(wp-config.php)

If hackers break into your website, they will typically try to access the wp-config.php file, because this file contains your WordPress database details, 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 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 Installation Files

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

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

Security Measure #7 – Update Your WordPress Software, Plugins And Themes

Hackers look for vulnerabilities in earlier versions of WordPress that can be exploited, including out-of-date versions of WordPress plugins and themes.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your Theme Editor

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

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor via the WordPress admin menu)

This means that anyone logging into your site can view and modify your theme template files, or create mayhem on your site.

To prevent people from accessing your 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 – Secure The Site’s Uploads Folder

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

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

(WordPress has an uploads folder where your media files are stored)

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

Protecting your directories will prevent unauthorized people from viewing 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 unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – WordPress Security Plugins

There are a number of security plugins for WordPress available that will address most common security issues faced by WordPress website owners, such as preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to vital information about your site, protecting your files from malicious exploits, preventing injections of code into files, etc.

Many WordPress plugins address some but not all areas of WordPress security. One 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 – complete security software solution for WordPress)

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

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

Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite

(Blog Defender)

This product is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, 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 quickly and easily fix these …

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

WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like keeping your WP software, plugins and themes up-to-date, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.

Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your web site is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.

As a final reminder, below is the advice given by a security expert to all WordPress users after the global brute-force attacks 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

***

As you can see, WordPress security is very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this article will help 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 professional WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, remember subscribe to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications when we publish new tips on WordPress security and tutorials about new WordPress security plugins.

***

***