When you are the world’s leading content management system and the online publishing platform of choice for millions of websites and loved by thousands of web developers and web designers, it’s inevitable that at some point in time, WordPress will come under attack by hackers wanting to score a “big win”.

In 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 vulnerable computers (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)

There are many methods hackers use to try and break into WordPress sites. One of these is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. This is done with software tools and scripts that can guess hundreds of possible logins in minutes.

If you’re not using strong usernames or unguessable passwords, your website could be an easy target for hacking attempts.

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)

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

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

The screenshot below was taken from a site that monitors online security 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” …

(ZeuS is a botnet that has been actively compromising computer networks all around the world since 2009. Screenshot image: SecureList.com)

The ongoing botnet attacks are well organized and highly distributed. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by a number of hosting companies just in the initial attack, when millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress users administration areas occurred. The worldwide brute-force attacks continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked per day.

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

(WordPress is frequently the target of malicious attacks by hackers)

Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Use WordPress Anymore?

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

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

It’s important to note that, in the case of the brute-force botnet attack described above, was no specific vulnerability in WordPress being exploited (the same script was also attacking sites built using other 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 – Ten Security Measures

You may think that the information in your website is of no interest to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, every website provides an opportunity to benefit or profit at your expense.

If a malicious user can exploit a software weakness in your web security and gain remote access of your site, your blog can then be used as part of a larger network of “bots” to target larger and more highly-valued web sites.

Additional undesirable impacts of being hacked include getting blacklisted by search engines, having stealthy spam links promoting things like viagra, porn, etc. in your content and meta data, malicious redirects to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious software on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasty things.

The harsh reality is that software-driven bots are trying to break into your blog right now. Whether they will do this successfully or not, will depend on how difficult you have made it for hackers or bots to keep trying until they can either find a way to get in, or are forced to decide to look for a less secure target.

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

Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …

(Hackertarget – Website Security Check Product image: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the check will return various results and details about your website …

(WP security check results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using the scanning tool that if you are able to access 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, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories in your site can all be potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any potential security weaknesses, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog is powered by WordPress and you are not taking appropriate steps to bolster the security of your site, we can practically guarantee that, at some point, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these brute force attacks are systematically hitting WordPress installations worldwide!

Whenever a site is broken into, webmasters can find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been vandalized or even entirely wiped out. Often, most compromised sites will become infected with malicious scripts without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

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

Note: Some of the steps shown below need some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress or server files. If you have no web editing skills, or don’t want to mess around with file code, then ask your web host or a professional WordPress technical provider for assistance.

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Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Web Host

Get in touch with your web host and ask them exactly what systems have been put into place to protect your site from being attacked, and what they are doing to make sure that your server files and data get regularly backed up.

Make sure that your hosting provider is regularly backing up your sites and that, if disaster strikes, you can quickly and easily get your files and data back.

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

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 complete WordPress site maintenance routine frequently (e.g. daily, weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

A complete WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A complete WP site maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP web site 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 web site backed up and updated. WP site 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 WordPress maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your site is the second most important thing you should do after making sure that you still have a pulse!

If you don’t want to back up your files manually, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone And Keep Your WordPress Websites Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

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

The mass brute-force botnet attack on WordPress sites was mostly attempting to compromise site administrator panels by exploiting WordPress sites using “admin” as their user name.

For reasons of website security, avoid installing WordPress sites with the username “admin”. This is the first area of potential vulnerability hackers will test. If your blog’s user name is admin, then make sure you change this immediately.

We have created a tutorial on how to change your username here: Changing Your WP Admin User Name 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 password and username characters that will give the hacker access to your site.

Unless you put some measure in place to prevent the brute force attack (see further below for a couple of effective ways to do this), the “bot” will just persist in attacking your site until it eventually “cracks” the code.

Weak passwords, therefore, are very easy targets for bot attacks. Make sure that you change your password combination to something containing at least eight characters long, and that includes upper and lowercase letters, combined with a few “special” characters (e.g. ^, $, &, etc).

You can use a password management program like Roboform to help you generate very secure passwords …

(You can use a password management tool like Roboform to generate hard-to-guess passwords)

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

Security Measure #5 – Protect 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.

(wp-config.php)

If a hacker breaks into your WordPress website, they will search for your wp-config.php file, because this is the file that contains your 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 being attacked and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, you must 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 – Rename Or Delete 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 delete these files, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Upgrade Your WordPress Site, Plugins & Themes

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

Make sure to always keep your WordPress software files, themes, plugins, etc. up-to-date.

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your WordPress Theme Editor

WordPress comes with a built-in editor that lets administrators edit theme and plugin files inside the dashboard area.

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor using the dashboard menu)

This allows anyone accessing your blog to view and make changes to your WordPress theme files, or create havoc on your site.

If you want to prevent unauthorized 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 The Site’s Uploads Directory

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

By default, this folder is visible to anyone online. All a person needs to do to see all of the contents stored in the “uploads” folder is navigate to your directory using their web browser …

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

If any files stored in his folder have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers, someone could 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 an empty file called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to ask for assistance from someone with experience if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Security Plugins

Several WordPress security plugins are available that specifically address common security issues faced by WordPress website owners, such as preventing unauthorized users from accessing your site, protecting your site from brute-force attacks, preventing unauthorized file uploads, etc.

Many 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 – total security software for WordPress)

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

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

Blog Defender Security Solution

(Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin)

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 potential security holes in your website are …

And then shows you how to quickly fix these …

If you don’t want to invest in a 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 keeping your WordPress installation, WordPress plugins and themes up-to-date, tightening file and data security 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, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of web security.

As a final reminder, below is the advice given by a web security expert to all WordPress users following the worldwide 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, website security is very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, this information 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 service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, do yourself a favor and subscribe to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications whenever we publish new tips on WordPress security and reviews of new security plugins.

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