When you are the world’s most popular content management system and the preferred online publishing platform for millions of businesses and loved by thousands of website developers and website designers, it’s inevitable that at some point in time, WordPress will come under attack from hackers wanting to score a “big win”.

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

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

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 WordPress sites is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. To attempt this, hackers use scripts and tools that can guess hundreds of login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using easy-to-guess usernames and predictable passwords, your website could be easily hacked by a malicious software’s repeated attempts to guess your site’s login details.

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

What Are 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/botnet)

”Botnets” are networks of private computers that have been infected with malicious scripts or code, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, often without the unsuspecting computer owners even being aware that this is happening in their machine.

Botnets are typically used to send mass spam emails from computers of compromised user accounts.

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 infecting computer networks all around the world since 2009 called “Zeus” …

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

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

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

(WordPress is the world’s most used content management system which makes it a target for hacker attacks)

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

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

We explain why WordPress is a secure web platform in this article: Is WordPress A Secure Website Platform?

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

Mike Little, the co-founder of WordPress, made this 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)

Preventing Your WordPress Blog From Being Brute-Force Attacked – 10 Security Measures

You may think that your website offers no value to hackers, but the reality is that all websites are valuable to a malicious user.

If someone can exploit a software weakness in your security that allows them to gain remote access of your website or blog, that site can then be used as a “bot” in a planned cyber-attack against larger and more highly-valued web sites.

Additional undesirable results of being hacked include getting blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links promoting things like gambling, discounted fashion, etc. inserted in your content and page title and descriptions, malicious redirects to phishing sites and other websites, data exfiltration (stealing customer details or Personal Identifiable Information from your web applications), and lots of other nasties.

The truth is that brute-force software bots are most likely searching for exploits and trying to break into your website or blog at this very moment. Whether they will hack in successfully will depend on how challenging you can make things for hackers to keep persisting until they either find a way to get access, or are forced to decide to look for a less protected target.

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

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

(Hackertarget – Website Security Check Source: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)

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

(website security check results. Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Product image: BlogDefender.com)

Being able 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 on your server are all potentially useful information to hackers, as this informs them about any exploitable vulnerabilities, especially where the owners haven’t updated their software versions.

If your website is driven by WordPress and you’re not preventive steps to toughen up your site, we can practically guarantee that, at some point in time, someone will attempt to hack your installation, because these attacks are systematically hitting WordPress installations worldwide!

Typically, whenever a website or blog is hacked, webmasters can discover much to their dismay that they have been “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been modified or even that their content has been completely wiped out. Typically, most sites will be infected with malicious scripts without the owner even being aware that a security breach has happened.

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

Note: Some of the steps shown below require some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress and/or server files. If you lack these technical skills, or don’t want to mess around with file code, then ask your web host or a professional WordPress technical provider for help.

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Security Measure #1 – Get In Touch With Your Web Host

Contact your webhosting company and ask them what security precautions they offer to protect your site from being attacked, and what they are doing to make sure that your WordPress sites get backed up.

Check that your host regularly backs up your sites and that, if disaster strikes, you can quickly and easily get your files and data back.

Security Measure #2 – Back Up Your WordPress Data And Files And Keep Your Website Frequently Maintained

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

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A full WP maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important it is to maintain your WordPress website regularly backed up and up-to-date. 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 maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure it gets done. Backing up your site 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 a number of free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Back Up, Clone And Protect Your WP Websites With Backup Creator WP Plugin

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

The brute-force attack on WordPress sites was mostly an attempt to compromise website admin panels and gain access to sites by exploiting WordPress installations with “admin” as their account name.

For website security purposes, never install sites with the username admin. This is the first thing hackers will test. If your blog’s username is admin, change it immediately.

For a step-by-step tutorial on how to change your WordPress username, go here: How To Change Your WordPress Username From Admin To A Different Username

Security Measure #4 – Make Sure Your Password Is Hard To Guess

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

Unless some measure is put into 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 “cracks” the code.

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

Roboform is a password program you can use to help you generate secure passwords …

(You can use a password management program like Roboform to help you generate unguessable passwords)

We have created a tutorial for WordPress admin users on how to change your WordPress password here: What To Do If You Need To Reset Login Passwords In WordPress

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

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

(WordPress WP Config file)

If hackers break into your site, they will search for your wp-config.php file, because this file contains your WordPress 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 attacks and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, 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 Installation Files

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

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

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

Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities in older versions of WordPress that they can exploit, including out-of-date versions of WP plugins and themes.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

WordPress comes with a built-in editor that lets the administrator edit theme and plugin code inside the dashboard area.

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

(The WordPress theme editor is accessible using the dashboard menu)

The WordPress theme editor allows anyone accessing your blog to see and modify your WP theme templates, and cause havoc on your site.

To prevent unauthorized people from accessing 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 contains all the media files that get uploaded to your WordPress site.

By default, this folder is visible to online users. All a person needs to do to see all of the contents in your site’s “uploads” directory is navigate to your directory using their browser …

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

If any files stored in his folder have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers or malicious users, someone can upload unauthorized file types or compromise the security of 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 seek professional help if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Use WordPress Security Plugins

Some great WordPress security plugins are available that will address most common security issues WordPress site owners face, such as preventing hackers from accessing your site, protecting your website from malicious scripts, preventing unauthorized file uploads, 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 files and causing irreparable damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – WordPress total security software)

SecureScanPro is easy to install and easy to use, and addresses 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 Security Plugin For WordPress)

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 WordPress site for security holes …

And then shows you how to quickly fix these …

If you don’t want to invest in 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 installation, plugins and themes up-to-date, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.

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

As a final reminder of the importance of website security, below is the advice given by an expert on web security to all WordPress users following the large-scale brute force attacks by botnets 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 above article has provided you with the initial guidelines and direction you need 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 professional 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 via email whenever we publish new information on WordPress security and reviews of new WordPress security plugins and solutions.

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