WordPress often comes under attack by hackers, due to its global popularity.

In early 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to a worldwide brute force attack.

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

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 ways hackers try to break into a WordPress site. One of these is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. This can be achieved with scripts and software tools that can work through hundreds of possible logins in minutes.

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

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/botnet)

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

Botnets are regularly used to blast mass spam emails from computers of unsuspecting users.

Below is a screenshot taken from an internet security monitoring site showing the locations of the command centers of ZeuS – a botnet that has been actively infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009 …

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

These botnet attacks are highly distributed and well organized. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several hosting companies in the initial attack alone, when the web was flooded with millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress user admin areas. The worldwide attacks continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress blogs being hacked each day.

Coverage of the April 2013 mass brute-force attack was widely reported in all of the major webhosting companiesand leading technology 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 …

(Powering millions of sites around the world makes WordPress 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 great reasons why you should choose WordPress if you are concerned at all about the security of your web presence.

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

It’s important to understand that, in the case of April 2013 worldwide brute force botnet attack described above, no specific WordPress vulnerability was being exploited (the same script was also attacking sites built using other CMS 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 Measures

You may think that your website provides little to no value to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, all websites are an opportunity to benefit at your expense.

If a hacker can break in and remotely control your blog, that site can then be employed as part of a larger network of “bots” to target larger and more valuable web sites.

Additional undesirable consequences of being hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by search engines, having stealthy spam links promoting things like casinos, porn, etc. inserted in your content and page title and descriptions, malicious redirects to phishing sites and other websites, drive-by downloads (adding malware on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasties.

The reality is that hackers are very likely looking for exploits and trying to break into your site while you are reading this page. Whether they can do this successfully or not, depends on how difficult you have made it for them to keep persisting until they find how 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?

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

(Hackertarget – WP Security Scan Product image: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)

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

(WordPress security check results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Image source: BlogDefender.com)

The ability 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 can all be potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any exploitable security vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog is powered by WordPress and you’re not preventive steps to bullet-proof your site, it’s practically guaranteed that, at some time in the near future, someone will attempt to hack your site, because these brute-force attacks are systematically hitting WordPress installations worldwide!

Typically, when a website is compromised, webmasters can find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been modified or even entirely wiped out. Typically, most compromised sites will become infected with malicious scripts without the owner even being aware that this has happened.

To help avoid the heartache (and significant loss of valuable business data) that comes with having your website or blog being hacked into, we have listed below 10 essential and effective security checks that will help to protect your WordPress site from being attacked by brute force botnet hacking attempts.

Note: Some of the recommended steps below require some technical skills to modify core WordPress or server files. If you are not technical-minded, or don’t want to mess around with file code, 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

Contact your web host and ask them what security precautions have been put into place to protect your site from being attacked, and what they are doing to ensure that your WordPress sites get regularly backed up.

It is important to check that your host backs up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily recover your site.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Complete WordPress Backups And Keep Your Site Regularly Maintained

Never rely just on your web host for your site backups. Instead, learn how to maintain your WordPress site or get this done for you and develop a habit of performing a full WordPress 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 data and files are free of errors, optimized and backed up,
• All WordPress themes, plugins and software components are up-to-date,
• etc …

A complete WordPress site maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP installation completely backed up and up-to-date is vitally important for WordPress security. Image source: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important maintaining your WordPress website regularly backed up and updated is. WP 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 site maintenance yourself, get someone else 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 are still breathing!

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

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

the worldwide brute force botnet attack on WordPress is mostly an attempt to compromise site admin panels by exploiting installations using “admin” as their username.

For reasons of website security, never install sites with the username admin. This is the first area hackers will test. If your site’s user name is “admin”, then make sure you change it immediately.

For a step-by-step tutorial for admin users on how to change your login username, go here: Changing Your WP Username From Admin To Another Username

Security Measure #4 – Use A Strong Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software continually hits a username and password field with different strings of characters in an attempt to guess the right combination that will unlock your website.

Unless you put some measure in place to block the brute-force attack (see further below for a couple of simple and effective suggestions for doing this), the “bot” will just persist in attacking your site until it eventually gets access.

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

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

(You can use a password software tool like Roboform to help you generate strong passwords)

For a simple tutorial created especially for WP admin users on how to change your admin password, go here: How To Reset Your WordPress Password

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.

(WordPress WP Config file)

If hackers break into your WordPress site, they will search for the wp-config.php file, because this is the file that 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 being attacked and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, 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 – Rename Or Delete Unnecessary 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 deleted. If you don’t want to delete these files, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Update Your WordPress Site, Plugins And Themes To Their Latest Version

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your WordPress Theme Editor

WordPress comes with a built-in editor that allows the site administrator to edit plugin and theme files inside the dashboard.

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

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

This allows anyone accessing your blog to see and modify all of your WordPress files, or cause havoc on your site.

If you want to prevent unauthorized people from being able to access 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 – Secure Your Site’s Uploads Folder

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

By default, this folder is visible to online users. All someone has to do to see the contents in the “uploads” directory is navigate to your directory using a web browser …

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

If any files stored in his folder have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers or malicious users, this can threaten the security of your website.

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, uploading a blank index.php file (this is literally a file with nothing in it named “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 – Security Plugins

Several security plugins for WordPress are available that specifically address most security issues faced by WordPress site owners, such as preventing hackers from gaining access to vital areas of your site, protecting your files from botnets, preventing unauthorized file uploads, 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 damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – complete security software solution for WordPress)

SecureScanPro is easy to install and easy to use, and takes care of most of the security areas that WordPress users need to address.

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

Blog Defender Security Solution

(Blog Defender)

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

BlogDefender scans you WordPress site for security weaknesses …

And then shows you how to fix these quickly …

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

WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress software, plugins and themes up-to-date, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to attacks by hackers and bots.

Regardless of the 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 securing your sites.

As one last reminder, below is the advice given by a web security expert to all WordPress users following the large-scale 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 very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this article will help prevent brute force attacks on your WordPress site. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please consult a WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

We also recommend subscribing to WPCompendium.org to be notified via email when we publish new articles and tutorials on WordPress security and tutorials about WordPress security plugins.

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