WordPress powers millions of websites worldwide, making it an easy target for malicious attempts by hackers.

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

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

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 a WordPress site. One of these is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. To do this, hackers use scripts and tools that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using predictable usernames and weak passwords that are easy to guess, your site can be an easy target for hacking attempts.

This is called a “brute force” login 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 code, which are then controlled remotely as a group, often without the computer owners even being aware that this is happening in their device.

Botnets are often used to send out mass spam emails from computers of unsuspecting users.

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 compromising computer networks all around the globe since 2009 …

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

The ongoing botnet attacks are highly distributed and well organized. 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 admin areas took place. The worldwide attacks then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress sites being hacked per day.

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

(Being the world’s most used CMS makes WordPress a target for attempted hacking attacks)

Does This Mean WordPress Is Not Secure And We Should Stop Using It?

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

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 understand that, in the case of the worldwide brute force botnet attack described above, was no specific vulnerability in WordPress being exploited (the same script was also targeting sites built using other web platforms like Joomla).

Mike Little, the co-founder 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 Protect Your WordPress Site From Being Brute-Force Attacked – Ten Security Checks

Every site with a vulnerability has potential value to hackers. An unsecured website or blog offers hackers with a valuable resource to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft.

If a hacker can break in and control your web site, that site can then be used as part of a larger network of “bots” to target larger and more valued websites.

Additional undesirable impacts of being hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by search engines, having stealthy spam links promoting things like online meds, cheap offers on brand names, etc. inserted into your content, malicious redirects to phishing sites or other websites, data exfiltration (stealing information or Personal Identifiable Information from your web applications), and lots of other nasty things.

The harsh reality is that brute-force software bots are most likely scouring for weaknesses and trying to break into your web site right now. Whether they will hack into your site or not, will depend on how difficult you can make it for hackers and botnets to keep persisting until they can either find a way to break in, or give up and decide to look for a less secure target.

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

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

(WordPress Security Check Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)

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

(WP security scan results. Product image source: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you are able to see all of this information about your WordPress website, then hackers can too.

(Source: BlogDefender website)

The ability to see what 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 are all useful information to hackers, as this informs them about potential security weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their files.

If your website is driven by WordPress and you’re not taking appropriate steps to toughen up your site, it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point, someone will attempt to hack your installation, because these attacks are systematically hitting WordPress sites all the world!

Typically, when a website gets hacked, website owners can find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been vandalized or even that their content has been completely wiped out. Often, most compromised sites will become infected with malicious software or viruses without the owner even being aware that a security breach has taken place.

To avoid the heartache (and potential financial loss) of 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 brute-force attacks.

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

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Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Web Host

Contact your hosting provider and ask them what security systems have been put into place to help prevent your site from botnet attacks, and what is done to make sure that your files and data get regularly backed up.

It is important to check that your webhosting service regularly backs up your server files and that, if anything happens, you can easily get back your files.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Regular WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Regularly Updated

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

A complete WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A full WordPress maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP site frequently backed up and up-to-date is vitally important for WordPress security. Screenshot image: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important it is to maintain your WordPress website completely backed up and updated. 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 WordPress site 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 must do after making sure that your heart is still beating!

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of free and paid plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Backup, Duplicate & Protect Your WordPress Websites With Backup Creator WP Plugin

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

The mass brute force botnet attack on WordPress is mostly an attempt to compromise website administrator panels by exploiting WP sites using “admin” as the account name.

For reasons of website security, don’t set up 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 change it immediately.

We have created a step-by-step tutorial for WordPress admin users that shows you how to change your admin username here: How To Change Your WordPress Username From Admin To Another Username

Security Measure #4 – Choose Strong Passwords

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software persistently hits a login or password field with different character strings in an attempt to guess the right login combination that will give them access to your website.

Unless you put some measure in place to prevent the brute force attack from happening (see further below for a couple of simple and effective ways to do this), the “bot” will just continue to attack your site until it eventually gets access.

Passwords that are easy to guess, therefore, make really easy targets for botnets. Make sure that you change your password combination to a string containing at least eight or nine characters long, with upper and lowercase letters, and add a few “special” characters (%^#$@&*).

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

(Roboform is a password management program that lets you easily generate different secure login passwords)

We have created a step-by-step tutorial created especially for non-technical admin users on how to change your admin password here: Changing Passwords

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

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

(wp-config.php file)

If a hacker breaks into your WordPress website, they will look for the wp-config.php file, because this is the file that contains your WordPress database details, 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.

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 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 Blog Installation Files

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

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

Security Measure #7 – Keep Your WordPress CMS, Plugins & Themes Up-To-Date

Hackers search for vulnerabilities they can exploit in earlier versions of WordPress, including outdated versions of WordPress plugins and themes.

Make sure to always keep all of your application files, themes, plugins, 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 theme and plugin code inside the dashboard area.

In WordPress, you can access the WordPress Theme Editor by selecting Appearance > Editor in your admin menu …

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

The WordPress theme editor feature allows anyone accessing your blog to view and edit your theme template files, or cause mayhem 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 – Remove Access To The Site’s Uploads Directory

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

Normally, this folder is visible to all users online. All someone has to do to view the contents stored in your “uploads” folder is navigate to your directory using a web browser …

(WordPress has an uploads directory where all of your media files are stored)

If any files stored in his folder have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users, this can compromise the security of 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 an empty file named “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to seek professional help if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Install WordPress Security Plugins

A number of great security plugins for WordPress are available that will address common security issues WordPress site owners face, such as preventing hackers from gaining access to vital information about your site, protecting your website from malicious software, preventing injections of code into files, 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 site files and causing damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – WordPress total security software)

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

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

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender WordPress Security Solution)

Blog Defender is a package 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 fix these quickly, easily and inexpensively …

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

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

No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of website security.

As a final reminder, below is the advice given by an expert on web security to all WordPress users after 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 of the utmost importance 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 WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, do yourself a favor and subscribe to WPCompendium.org to be notified via email when we publish new articles and tutorials on WordPress security and tutorials about WordPress security plugins and solutions.

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