WordPress is the world’s most used content management system which makes it an easy target for hacking attacks.

In April 2013 a large-scale brute-force attack struck WordPress installations on virtually every host server in existence.

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

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)

One of the many ways hackers use to try and break into WordPress sites is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. This is done with software programs that can guess hundreds of possible logins in minutes.

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

This is called a “brute-force” login attack.

Botnets

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 computers that have been infected with malicious code or scripts, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, often without the unsuspecting computer owners’ knowledge.

Botnets are typically used to send out mass spam emails.

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 compromising computer networks all around the globe since 2009 called “Zeus” …

(ZeuS is a botnet that has been actively infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009. Screenshot source: SecureList.com)

These were highly distributed and well organized attacks. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several webhosting companies in the initial attack alone, when the web was flooded with millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress users administration areas. The large-scale attacks then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked each day.

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

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

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 web platform in this article: Why WordPress Is A Secure Platform For Websites –

It’s important to understand that, in the case of April 2013 large-scale brute force botnet attack described above, no specific WordPress vulnerability was being exploited (the same script was also attacking sites built using other platforms like Joomla).

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

Protecting Your WordPress Blog From Being Brute Force Attacked – Ten Security Checks

You may think that the information in your website has no value to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, every website provides an opportunity to gain some benefit at your expense.

If hackers can hack into and compromise the control of your website or blog, the blog can then be employed as a “bot” in a planned cyberattack against larger and more valued websites.

Additional undesirable results of being hacked include being blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links advertising things like viagra, discounted fashion, etc. inserted in your content and page title and descriptions, redirecting visitors to phishing sites and 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 malicious bots are probably looking for security exploits and trying to hack into your website while you are reading this page right now. Whether they can hack in successfully will depend on how hard you can make it for them to keep persisting until they can either work out how to get in, or are forced to give up and decide to look for a less protected 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 Check Product image source: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Hackertarget – website security check results. Image source: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using this scanning tool that if you are able to freely access all of this information, then so can hackers.

(Screenshot: BlogDefender website)

The ability 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 useful information to hackers, as this can inform them about exploitable security vulnerabilities, especially where site owners haven’t updated their sites.

If your website is powered by WordPress and you are not taking appropriate steps to bolster the security of your site, then it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these attacks are systematically hitting WordPress sites all the world!

When a website is broken into, webmasters can discover much to their dismay that they have been “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their content has been vandalized or even entirely wiped out. Often, most sites will become infected with malicious software or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

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

Note: A few of the recommended steps shown below need some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress or server files. If you lack these technical skills, or don’t want to mess around with code on your site, then ask your web host or search for a WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Host

Get in touch with your hosting service and ask them what precautions have been put in place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what is done to ensure that your server files get backed up.

Make sure that your web host backs up your server files and that, if anything happens, you can easily get back your files.

Security Measure #2 – Back Up Your WordPress Data And Files And Keep Your Site Regularly Maintained

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

A full 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 software, plugins and themes are up-to-date,
• etc …

A complete WP site maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WordPress website frequently backed up and updated is vitally important for WordPress security. Image: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important maintaining your WordPress web site regularly backed up and up-to-date is. WordPress maintenance is not hard or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website or blog. If you don’t want to learn how to do WP site 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 perform manual backups, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Back Up, Copy And Keep Your WordPress Site Protected With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

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

The large scale brute-force botnet attack on WordPress sites was mostly attempting to compromise site administrator panels by exploiting sites using “admin” as the username.

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

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

Security Measure #4 – Your Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when a malicious script continually tries to guess the right combination of password and username characters that will unlock your website.

Unless you put some measure in place to stop the brute force attack from happening (see further below for a couple of effective suggestions for doing this), the “bot” will just persist in attacking your site until it eventually breaks into your admin area.

Weak passwords, therefore, make very easy targets for botnets. Make sure that you change your password combination to a string that is at least 8 characters long, with both upper and lowercase letters, and “special” characters (^%$#&@*).

You can use a password tool like Roboform to create unbreakable passwords …

(You can use a password software tool like Roboform to create unbreakable passwords)

For a tutorial for admin users that shows you how to change your WordPress password, go here: Changing WordPress Passwords

Security Measure #5 – Prevent The wp-config.php File From Being Accessed

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

(wp-config.php)

If hackers break into your WordPress website, 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, 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 – Delete Or Rename Unnecessary Installation Files

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

These files are not required after installation. If you don’t want to delete these files, then just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Update Your WordPress Software, Themes & Plugins To Their Latest Version

Hackers search for vulnerabilities they can exploit in older WordPress versions, including out-of-date versions of WordPress plugins and themes.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

WordPress installations come with a built-in editor that allows administrators to edit theme and plugin code from the dashboard area.

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

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

This means that anyone logging into your site can see and make changes to all of your WordPress files, and 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 editing your wp-config.php file.

Security Measure #9 – Prevent Access To The WordPress Uploads Folder

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

Normally, this folder is visible to online users. All a person needs to do to view the contents in your site’s “uploads” directory is visit your directory using a web browser …

(WordPress uploads folder)

If any directories in your website have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers or malicious users, this can compromise the security of 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, uploading 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 hire a professional if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – WordPress Security Plugins

Several security plugins for WordPress are available that will address most common security issues WordPress site owners face, such as preventing hackers from accessing your site, protecting your site from malicious scripts, 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 issues that could lead to hackers accessing your site files and causing damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – WP security plugin)

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 security plugin you may want to consider using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite)

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

BlogDefender scans you website for potential security vulnerabilities …

And then shows you how to easily fix these …

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

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

Regardless of the type 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 ignore.

As a final reminder of the importance of keeping your websites protected, below is the advice given by a web security expert 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 of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this article has provided you with the initial steps you need to take to prevent brute force attacks on your WordPress site. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please seek help from a 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 receive notifications via email when we publish new articles on WordPress security and tutorials about new security plugins and solutions.

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