Powering millions of websites around the world makes WordPress a target for hackers.

In early 2013 a large-scale brute-force attack struck WordPress installations across almost every host server in existence around the world.

These attacks were caused by botnets (computers infected with malware and programmed to attack other computers with security vulnerabilities).

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)

There are many ways hackers try to break into a WordPress site. One of these is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. This is done with software programs that can work through hundreds of possible logins in minutes.

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

This is called a “brute-force” attack.

Botnet – What Is This?

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, often without the computer owners even being aware that this is happening.

Botnets are typically used to blast out 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 infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009 called “Zeus” …

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

The botnet attacks on WordPress were highly distributed and well organized. 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 site admin areas. The brute force attacks continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress sites being hacked each day.

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

(Powering millions of websites and blogs worldwide makes WordPress a target for malicious attacks by hackers)

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 use WordPress if you are concerned about the security of your website.

To understand why WordPress is a secure web platform, read this article: Why WordPress Is A Secure Platform For Websites –

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

Mike Little, the co-founder of WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, 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)

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

Every blog with a vulnerability provides some type of opportunity to hackers. An unsecured blog presents malicious users with a resource for launching distributed denial of service attacks, spreading malware and engaging in information theft.

If hackers can discover a way to gain remote access of your blog, the site can then be employed as part of a larger network of “bots” to target other valuable websites.

Additional undesirable impacts of being hacked include being blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links advertising things like gambling, cheap offers on brand names, etc. inserted into your content and page title and descriptions, malicious redirects to phishing sites or other websites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious scripts on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasty things.

The truth is that software-driven bots are looking for vulnerabilities and trying to hack into your blog at this very moment. Whether they will hack in successfully or not, depends on how hard you have made it for them to continue persisting until they discover how to break in, or decide to look for a less protected target.

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

Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security check …

(WP Security Check Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the scan returns a number of results and details about your site …

(Hackertarget – WP security check results. Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Screenshot image: BlogDefender site)

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 can be valuable information to hackers, as these can inform them about any exploitable security weaknesses, especially in older versions.

If your website is driven by WordPress and you’re not taking steps to toughen up your site, it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point in time, someone will attempt to hack your site, because these brute force attacks are systematically hitting WordPress sites worldwide!

Typically, whenever a website or blog is compromised, website owners will find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their content has been interfered with or that everything has been entirely wiped out. Often, most compromised sites will become infected with malicious software without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To avoid the heartache that comes with discovering that your site has been hacked into, below are 10 essential and effective security measures that will help to prevent your WordPress site from being brute force attacked.

Note: A few of the steps shown below need some technical skills to modify core WordPress and 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 – Contact Your Hosting Provider

Contact your host and ask them exactly what security precautions have been put into place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what they are doing to make sure that your site files get regularly backed up.

It’s important to check that your hosting provider is backing up your sites and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily recover your files and data.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Full WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Frequently Maintained

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

A proper 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 WP themes, plugins and software components are up-to-date,
• etc …

A complete WordPress maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP site frequently 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 WP website or blog frequently backed up and up-to-date is. WordPress site maintenance is not hard 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 WordPress maintenance yourself, pay someone to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your website is the second most important thing you must 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. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Copy & Keep Your WordPress Web Site Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

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

the worldwide brute-force botnet attack on WordPress sites was mostly an attempt to compromise site administrator panels by exploiting WP sites using “admin” as the username.

For security reasons, never set up WordPress sites with the username admin. This is the first area hackers will test. If your blog’s username is admin, you will need to change it immediately.

For a simple tutorial for WP admin users that shows you how to change your admin username, go here: How To Change Your Admin Username In WordPress To Another User Name

Security Measure #4 – Choose Strong Passwords

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software persistently hits a username and password field with different strings of characters in an attempt to guess the right combination that will give them entry to 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 suggestions for doing this), the “bot” will just continue attacking your site until it eventually breaks into your admin area.

Weak passwords, therefore, make really easy targets for bot attacks. Make sure that you change your password combination to something that contains at least 8 or 9 characters long, with upper and lowercase letters, and add a few “special” characters (e.g. ^, $, &, etc).

You can use a password tool like Roboform to help you generate hard-to-crack passwords …

(Roboform is a password program you can use to help you generate very secure passwords)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial created especially for non-technical WP admin users on how to change your WordPress admin password, go here: How To Reset Passwords

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

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

(wp-config.php)

If hackers break into your WordPress website, they will normally try to access your wp-config.php file, because this file contains your 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.

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 – Delete Or Rename Unnecessary Website Installation Files

Rename or delete 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, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Update Your WordPress CMS, Themes And Plugins

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

Make sure to keep all of your installation files, themes, plugins, etc. up-to-date.

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

WordPress installations come with a built-in editor feature that lets you edit plugin and theme files inside the dashboard.

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor via the WP admin menu)

The WordPress theme feature lets anyone accessing your site view and change your files, and create mayhem on your site.

If you want to prevent 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 – Protect The WordPress Uploads Directory

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

Normally, this folder is visible to online users. All someone has to do to see all of the contents in the “uploads” folder is visit the directory using a web browser …

(WordPress uploads folder)

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

Protecting your directories will prevent online users 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 blank file called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to use a professional if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Use WordPress Security Plugins

There are some great WordPress security plugins available that specifically address many common security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing hackers from accessing vital areas of your site, protecting your website from botnets, preventing unauthorized file uploads, etc.

Most WordPress plugins address some but not all areas of WordPress security. One security plugin that seems to do a comprehensive job of scanning, fixing and preventing issues that could lead to hackers accessing your files and damaging your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – security plugin for WordPress)

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

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

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender Security Product Suite For WordPress Websites & Blogs)

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

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

And lets you quickly and easily fix these …

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

WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress core files, WordPress plugins and WP themes up-to-date, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.

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

As one last reminder of the importance of keeping your websites protected, below is the advice given by a security expert to all WordPress users after the worldwide brute force attacks 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 will help prevent brute-force attacks on your WordPress site. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please consult a professional WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

We also recommend subscribing to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications when we publish new tutorials on WordPress security and reviews of WordPress security plugins.

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