WordPress is often the target of malicious attacks by hackers, due to its popularity.

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

These attacks were caused by computer networks infected with malware and programmed to attack other vulnerable computers, also commonly known as “botnets”.

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 a WordPress site. One of these is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. This can be achieved using scripts and tools that can work through hundreds of login combinations in minutes.

If you’re not using strong usernames or unguessable passwords, your site could be easily hacked by a malicious software’s repeated attempts to work out 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/botnet)

A “Botnet” is a network of private computers that have been infected with malicious code, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, often without the computer owners even being aware that this is taking place.

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

The screenshot below was taken from an online security monitoring site 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. Source: SecureList.com)

These botnet attacks on WordPress are well organized and highly distributed. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by a number of hosting companies in the initial attack alone, when millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress site administration areas occurred. The mass attack then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress blogs being hacked every day.

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

(WordPress is often the target of attacks by hackers)

Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Use WordPress Anymore?

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

To learn what makes WordPress a very secure web platform, read this article: Concerned About WordPress Security? What Every Blog Owner Needs To Know About WordPress Security

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

Mike Little, one of the co-founders of WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, 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)

How To Prevent Your WordPress Blog From Brute-Force Attacks – Ten Security Checks

You may think that the information in your website is of little value to hackers, but the reality is that all websites are valuable to a malicious user.

If a hacker can exploit a vulnerability in the web software and gain control of your website or blog, your website or blog can then be used as part of a larger network of “bots” to target other highly-valued sites.

Additional undesirable impacts of having your website hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links promoting things like casinos, discounted fashion, etc. in your content, malicious redirects to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malware on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasty things.

The harsh reality is that hackers are most likely looking for security exploits and trying to hack into your web site while you are reading this right now. Whether they can break in successfully or not, will depend on how challenging you can make it for hackers to continue trying until they either can discover how to break in, or decide to look for a less protected target.

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

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

(Hackertarget – WP Security Check Image source: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the check returns various results and details about your site …

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

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

(Screenshot 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 useful information to hackers, as these can inform them about potential security vulnerabilities, especially where the owners haven’t updated their files.

If your site or blog is driven by WordPress and you’re not proactive steps to bolster the security of your site, we can practically guarantee that, at some time in the near future, someone will attempt to hack your installation, because these brute force attacks are systematically hitting WordPress installations worldwide!

Typically, whenever a website gets broken into, webmasters can discover much to their dismay that they have been “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been altered or that everything has been entirely wiped out. Often, sites will be infected with malicious scripts without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To avoid the heartache that comes with having your site being hacked into, below are 10 simple, yet essential and effective security measures that will help to protect your WordPress site from brute-force botnet attacks.

Note: A few of the measures shown below require some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress and/or 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 Web Host

Get in touch with your hosting provider and ask them what systems are in place to help prevent your site from brute force attacks, and what is done to make sure that your files and data get backed up.

Check that your hosting company is regularly backing up your server files and that, if anything happens, you can easily get back your site.

Security Measure #2 – Back Up Your WordPress Data And Files And Keep Your Website Or Blog Frequently Updated

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

A full WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A complete WordPress site maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important it is to maintain your WP website or blog fully 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 or blog. If you do not want to learn how to do WordPress maintenance yourself, pay a professional to do it but make sure it 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 back up your site manually, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Backup, Clone & Protect Your WP Website With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

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

The large scale brute-force botnet attack on WordPress sites was mostly attempting to compromise website admin panels by exploiting WordPress sites with “admin” as the user name.

For website security reasons, never install WordPress sites with the username “admin”. This is the first thing hackers will test. If your blog’s user name is admin, you should change it immediately.

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to change your login username, go here: Changing Your WordPress Admin Username

Security Measure #4 – Change Your Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software continually hits a username and password field with different character strings trying to guess the right login combination that will give the hacker access to your website.

Unless some measure is put into place to prevent the brute-force attack from happening (see further below for a couple of effective ways to do this), the “bot” will just continue to attack your site until it eventually breaks into your admin area.

Weak passwords, therefore, are very easy targets for hacking attacks. Make sure that you change your password to something containing at least 8 characters long, and that includes upper and lowercase letters, combined with “special” characters (e.g. %, $, *, etc).

Roboform is a password software that lets you easily generate different hard-to-guess passwords …

(Roboform is a password software that lets you easily generate secure passwords)

We have created a simple step-by-step tutorial for non-technical WordPress admin users on how to change your admin password here: What To Do If You Need To Reset Your WordPress Password

Security Measure #5 – Prevent Your wp-config.php File From Being Visible

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

(wp-config.php file)

If hackers break into your WordPress website, they will typically search for the wp-config.php file, because this is the file that contains your database information, 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 being attacked and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, prevent people from accessing 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 – Rename Or Delete Unnecessary Installation Files

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

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

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

Hackers look for vulnerabilities they can exploit in previous WordPress versions, including outdated versions of WP themes and plugins.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your WordPress Theme Editor

WordPress comes with a built-in editor feature that allows you to edit plugin and theme code from the dashboard.

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

(The WordPress theme editor can be accessed using the WP main menu)

The WordPress theme editor allows anyone accessing your blog to view and modify your WP theme templates, or cause mayhem on your site.

To prevent people from being able to access 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 – Protect Your Site’s Uploads Folder

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

Normally, this folder is visible to all users online. All a person needs to do to see the contents stored in your site’s “uploads” folder is visit the directory using a 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, this can become a serious threat to the security of your website.

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, 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 ask help from someone with experience if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Use WordPress Security Plugins

There are a number of great security plugins for WordPress available that specifically address most common security issues WordPress site owners face, such as preventing hackers from gaining access to vital areas of your site, protecting your files from botnets, preventing unauthorized file uploads, 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 potential issues that could lead to hackers accessing your site files and causing irreparable damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – security plugin for WordPress)

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

Another plugin you may want to look at using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender)

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

BlogDefender scans you web site for security vulnerabilities …

And lets you easily fix these …

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

WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress software, WP plugins and themes, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to malicious by hackers and bots.

No matter what type 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 website security.

As a final reminder of the importance of keeping your websites protected, 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 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 WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, please remember to subscribe to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications when we publish new tips on WordPress security and reviews of new security plugins and solutions.

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