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

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

These attacks were caused by botnets (networks of infected computers programmed to attack other computers).

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)

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. To achieve this, hackers use software tools that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login possibilities in minutes.

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

This is called a “brute force” attack.

Botnets – What Are They?

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 compromised and infected with malicious software, which are then controlled remotely as a group, typically without the unsuspecting computer owners’ knowledge.

Botnets are often used to blast mass spam emails from 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 compromising computer networks all around the globe since 2009 …

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

These ongoing botnet attacks on WordPress sites are well organized and highly distributed. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by a number of webhosting companies just in the initial attack, when the web was flooded with millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress users administration areas. The mass attack then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked each day.

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

(WordPress is often the target of malicious attacks by hackers, due to its global popularity)

Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Use WordPress Anymore?

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

To understand what makes WordPress a very secure platform for websites, see this article: Is WordPress Secure?

It’s important to note that, in the case of April 2013 mass brute-force botnet attack described above, there was no WordPress vulnerability being exploited (the same script was also targeting sites built using platforms 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)

Protecting Your WordPress Site From Brute Force Attacks – 10 Security Points

You may think that the information in your website has nothing to offer to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, every website is an opportunity to benefit or profit at your expense.

If someone can hack and gain control of your blog, that web site can then be employed as a “bot” to attack other highly-valued web sites.

Additional undesirable effects of having your website hacked include getting blacklisted by search engines, having stealthy spam links promoting things like viagra, cheap offers on brand names, etc. inserted in your content, redirecting visitors to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malware on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasty things.

The harsh reality is that software-driven bots are scouring for exploits and trying to hack into your website or blog as you are reading this right now. Whether they can hack into your site successfully depends on how hard or easy you will make it for them to keep trying until they work out how to get in, or decide to look for a less secure target.

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

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

(Website Security Check Screenshot source: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)

You will see that the scan will return various results and information about your WordPress installation …

(Hackertarget – WP security scan results. Image source: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you are able to freely access all of this information about your WordPress site, then so can hackers.

(Product image source: BlogDefender.com)

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 this informs them about exploitable vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your website runs on WordPress and you’re not precautionary steps to bullet-proof your site, then we can practically guarantee that, at some time in the near future, someone will attempt to hack your website, because these attacks are systematically targeting WordPress sites around the world!

Whenever a website or blog gets broken into, blog owners can find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been modified or even entirely wiped out. Typically, compromised sites will be infected with malicious software or viruses without the owner even being aware that this has happened.

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

Note: Some of the steps below require some technical skills to modify core WordPress or server files. If you are not technical, 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 – Get In Touch With Your Webhosting Service

Get in touch with your web host and ask them exactly what security precautions have been put into place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what is done to ensure that your files and data get regularly backed up.

Make sure that your webhosting company backs up your sites and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily get your files back.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Full WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Or Blog Regularly Maintained

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

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A complete WordPress site maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP website or blog regularly backed up and updated is vitally important for WordPress security. Screenshot source: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important maintaining your WordPress installation regularly backed up and updated is. WP 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 someone to do it but make sure it gets done. Backing up your website is the next most important thing you should do after making sure that you still have a pulse!

If you don’t want to back up your site 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 Website Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

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

The large scale brute-force botnet attack on WordPress is mostly an attempt to compromise site admin panels and gain access to the site by exploiting WP installations with “admin” as their account name.

For reasons of website security, don’t set up WordPress sites with the username “admin”. This is the first thing hackers will test. If your site’s username is admin, then change this immediately.

For a step-by-step tutorial created especially for non-technical WP admin users that shows you how to change your WordPress username, go here: Changing Your WP User Name From Admin To Another User Name

Security Measure #4 – Your Password

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

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

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

Roboform is a password management software that lets you create different strong login passwords …

(You can use a password management tool like Roboform to generate difficult passwords)

For a tutorial on how to change your admin password, go here: What To Do If You Need To Reset Your WordPress Password

Security Measure #5 – Prevent Access To The 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 options for WordPress.

(WordPress WP Config file)

If a hacker breaks into your WordPress website, they will typically look for your wp-config.php file, because this file contains your WordPress database information, 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 people getting to 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 – Delete Or Rename Unnecessary Blog Installation Files

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

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

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

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

Ensure that all of your application files, plugins, themes, etc. are always up to date.

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

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

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor via the admin menu)

This means that anyone logging into your site can view and edit your theme templates, or cause mayhem on your site.

If you want to prevent unauthorized 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 – Remove Access To Your WordPress Uploads Folder

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

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

(WordPress has an uploads folder where media content is stored)

If any directories in your website have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users, someone can upload unauthorized file types or compromise the security of your website.

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 a blank 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 – Use WordPress Security Plugins

Several security plugins for WordPress are available that specifically address many common security issues faced by WordPress site 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 security plugin that does a comprehensive job of scanning, fixing and preventing potential issues that could lead to hackers accessing your website files and damaging your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – WordPress security software)

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

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

Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin

(Blog Defender Security Suite For WordPress)

This product is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.

BlogDefender shows you where the security holes in your WordPress installation are …

And then shows you how to fix these quickly …

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 very secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like keeping your WP installation, WordPress plugins and themes up-to-date, tightening file and data protection 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, web security is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.

As one last reminder, below is the advice given by a website security expert to all WordPress users following the large-scale 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

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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 has given you the initial guidelines and direction you need to 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 WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

We also recommend subscribing to WPCompendium.org to be notified whenever we publish new tips on WordPress security and tutorials about new WordPress security plugins.

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