WordPress powers millions of websites and blogs worldwide, making it a target for hacking.

In 2013 a mass brute force attack began hitting WordPress installations across virtually every WP host server in existence.

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

How To Protect Your WordPress Site From A Brute-Force Attack

Brute-Force Attacks – An Overview

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 will attempt to break into a WordPress site is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. To do this, hackers use scripts and software that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login permutations in minutes.

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

This is called a “brute-force” login 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)

”Botnets” are networks of computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious code or software, which are then controlled remotely as a group, typically without the unsuspecting computer owners’ knowledge.

Botnets are normally used used to blast mass spam emails.

Below is a screenshot taken from an internet security monitoring site 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 compromising computer networks all around the globe since 2009. Image source: SecureList.com)

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

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

(Being the world’s most popular 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 good reasons why you should use WordPress if you are concerned about the security of your web presence.

We explain what makes WordPress a very secure web platform in this article: WordPress Security What Every Business Owner Needs To Know About WordPress Security

It’s important to understand that, in the case of the worldwide brute force attack described above, there was no WordPress vulnerability being exploited (the same script was also targeting sites built using applications 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 Website From Being Brute-Force Attacked – Ten Security Points

You may think that your website or blog offers no value to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, every website provides an opportunity to benefit at your expense.

If a malicious user can exploit a flaw in your security setup, your web site can then be used as part of a larger network of “bots” to target more valued web sites.

Additional undesirable impacts of having your site hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links promoting things like viagra, porn, etc. inserted into your content, redirecting visitors to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious programs on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasties.

The harsh reality is that brute-force software bots are probably trying to break into your blog at this very moment. Whether they can hack in successfully or not, depends on how challenging you have made it for them to keep persisting until they can either find how to get access, or are forced to decide to look for a less secure target.

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

If you visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security check …

(WordPress Security Check Image source: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the check will display a number of results and information about your site setup …

(Hackertarget – website security scan results. Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Product image: BlogDefender.com)

The ability to see which 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 are all useful information to hackers, as this informs them about potential security weaknesses, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog is driven by WordPress and you are not preventive steps to bolster the security of your site, then it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point, someone will attempt to hack your installation, because these attacks are systematically targeting WordPress sites worldwide!

Whenever a website is hacked, website owners will find themselves completely “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been modified or even that their content has been entirely wiped out. Often, most compromised sites will be infected with malicious software or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To help avoid the heartache that comes with discovering that your web site has been hacked into, we have listed below ten simple, yet essential and effective security measures that will help to protect your WordPress site from being brute force attacked.

Note: A few of the measures below require some technical skills to modify core WordPress and 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 service provider for help.

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Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Host

Contact your web host and ask them exactly what measures they offer to help prevent your site from brute-force attacks, and what is done to ensure that your site files get backed up.

It’s important to check that your web host regularly backs up your server files and that, if anything happens, you can easily get back your files and data.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Complete WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Regularly Up-To-Date

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

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A proper 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 WordPress web site frequently backed up and up-to-date. WP site maintenance is not hard to do or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website. If you don’t want to learn how to do WP maintenance yourself, pay a professional to do it but make sure it 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 a number of free and paid plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Copy & Keep Your WP Web Site Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

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

The large scale brute force attack on WordPress is mostly an attempt to compromise website admin panels and gain access to the site by exploiting sites using “admin” as the username.

For reasons of website security, avoid setting up a WordPress site with the username “admin”. This is the first area of potential vulnerability hackers will test. If your blog’s user name is “admin”, you will need to change this immediately.

We have created a detailed step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to change your login username here: How To Change Your WP Username From Admin To Another Username

Security Measure #4 – Change Your Password

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

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

Weak passwords, therefore, are very easy targets for brute-force attacks. Make sure that you change your password to something that is at least 8 characters long, and that includes upper and lowercase letters, combined with a few “special” characters (^%$#&@*).

Roboform is a password software you can use to generate different secure login passwords …

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

For a tutorial for WordPress admin users that shows you how to change your admin password, go here: What To Do If You Need To Change The Login Password

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

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.

(WP Config 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 details, 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.

To protect your WordPress site from attacks and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, 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 WP Installation Files

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

These files are completely unnecessary after installation and can be removed. If you don’t want to delete these files, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Update Your WordPress Installation, Plugins & Themes

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

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

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor via the WordPress dashboard menu)

The WordPress theme feature lets anyone accessing your site’s admin view and modify all of your WordPress theme template files, and cause havoc on your site.

To prevent unauthorized 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 – Protect The Site’s Uploads Directory

The “uploads” folder contains all the media that gets uploaded to your site.

Normally, this folder is visible to anyone online. All someone has to do to see the contents 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 or malicious users, someone can upload unauthorized file types to your site.

Protecting your directories will prevent unauthorized people from viewing 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 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 – Install WordPress Security Plugins

There are a number of great security plugins for WordPress available that specifically address most common security issues faced by WordPress website owners, such as preventing hackers from accessing vital areas of your site, protecting your website from botnets, 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 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 addresses most of the security issues that WordPress users need to address.

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

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender Security Suite For WordPress Websites)

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

BlogDefender scans you WordPress installation for potential security vulnerabilities …

And lets you fix these quickly …

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

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

No matter what 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 website security.

As one last reminder, below is the advice given by a website security expert to all WordPress users after the mass 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, website security is very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this article has given you the initial steps you need to take 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 professional WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, remember subscribe to WPCompendium.org to be notified when we publish new articles and tutorials on WordPress security and reviews of new WordPress security plugins.

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