When you are the world’s leading content management system and the preferred online publishing platform used by millions of websites and loved by thousands of website developers and website designers, it’s inevitable that at some point in time, WordPress will become a prime target for attacks from hackers.

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

These attacks were caused by botnets (computer networks infected with viruses and programmed to attack other vulnerable sites).

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

What Are 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 will attempt to break into WordPress sites is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. This is done using software programs that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login permutations in minutes.

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

This is called a “brute force” login attack.

Botnet Definition

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)

A “Botnet” is a network of private computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious code, which are then controlled remotely as a group, typically without the computer owners’ knowledge.

Botnets are typically used to blast mass spam emails from the infected 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 world since 2009 …

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

These were highly distributed and well organized 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 user admin areas occurred. The large-scale brute force attacks continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress sites being hacked per day.

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

(Being the world’s most popular CMS makes WordPress an obvious target for hacking 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 online presence.

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

It’s important to note that, in the case of April 2013 large-scale brute-force attack described above, no specific WordPress vulnerability was 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 botnet 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 Website From Being Brute Force Attacked – 10 Security Points

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

If a hacker can hack into and compromise the control of your blog, that web site can then be employed to attack more highly-valued web sites.

Additional undesirable results of having your website hacked and your site security compromised include being blacklisted by Google, having stealthy spam links promoting things like gambling, discounted fashion, etc. in your content and meta data, malicious redirects to phishing sites and other websites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious software on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasties.

The truth is that brute-force software bots are probably trying to hack into your website at this very moment. Whether they can achieve this depends on how difficult you will make it for them to continue trying until they find how to break in, or decide to look for a less protected target.

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

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

(Hackertarget – WP Security Check Image source: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the scan will return various results and information about your website setup …

(WordPress security scan results. Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Source: BlogDefender website)

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 can all be potentially useful information to hackers, as these can inform them about any potential holes or weaknesses, especially where site owners haven’t updated their files.

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

When a site gets broken into, website owners can find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been altered or even that their content has been entirely wiped out. Typically, compromised sites will become infected with malicious scripts without the owner even being aware that a security breach has occurred.

To avoid the heartache (and significant loss of valuable business data) of discovering that your web site has been hacked into, we have listed below ten essential and effective security checks that will help to protect your WordPress site from being brute-force attacked.

Note: Some of the steps listed 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 code on your site, then ask your web host or search for a professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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Security Measure #1 – Get In Touch With Your Host

Contact your hosting provider and ask them what systems have been put into place to help prevent your site from brute-force attacks, and what is done to ensure that your server files and data are being regularly backed up.

Make sure that your web host is backing up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily recover your site.

Security Measure #2 – Back Up Your WordPress Data And Files And Keep Your Site Regularly Maintained

You should never rely 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 complete site maintenance routine frequently (e.g. weekly, monthly, etc …)

A complete WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A full WordPress maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP site completely backed up and updated is vitally important for WordPress security. Screenshot image: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important maintaining your WordPress site backed up and up-to-date is. WordPress maintenance is not hard or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website. If you do not want to learn how to do WP maintenance yourself, pay someone to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your site is the next most important thing you should do after making sure that your heart is still beating!

If you don’t want to back up your data manually, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Back Up, Duplicate And Keep Your WordPress Sites Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

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

the worldwide brute-force botnet attack on WordPress is mostly an attempt to compromise site administrator panels and gain access to the site by exploiting WordPress sites with “admin” as their user name.

For reasons of website security, avoid installing a WordPress site with the username admin. This is the first area hackers will test. If your site’s username is “admin”, then make sure you change it immediately.

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to change your login username here: Changing Your WordPress Admin Username To A More Secure User Name

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

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

Unless some measure is put into place to stop 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.

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

Roboform is a password management tool you can use to generate secure passwords …

(Roboform is a password software that lets you generate really secure passwords)

For a simple step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to change your admin password, go here: What To Do If You Need To Reset Your Password

Security Measure #5 – Deny Access To Your WP Config 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 site, they will try to access your wp-config.php file, because this is the file that contains your WordPress database details, security keys, etc. Getting access to this information would allow them 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, you must prevent your wp-config.php file from being accessible. 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

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

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

Security Measure #7 – Keep Your WordPress Site, Plugins & Themes Up-To-Date

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

WordPress installations come with a built-in editor feature that lets site administrators edit theme and plugin code from the dashboard area.

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor via the main menu)

This allows anyone accessing your blog’s admin to view and make changes to your theme files, or create havoc on your site.

If you want 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 – Secure Your WordPress Uploads Folder

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

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

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

If any files stored in his folder have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers or malicious users, this can become a serious threat to the security of your site.

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, adding 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 seek professional help if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – WordPress Security Plugins

There are several WordPress security plugins available that specifically address most security issues faced by WordPress site owners, such as preventing hackers from accessing your site, protecting your site from malicious exploits, preventing injections of code into files, etc.

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

(SecureScanPro – WordPress security plugin)

SecureScanPro is easy to install and easy to use, and fixes most of the security issues that WordPress users need to address.

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

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite)

Blog Defender is a package 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 fix these quickly and easily …

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

WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like making sure that your WordPress installation, plugins and themes are kept updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website 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 ignore the importance of securing your websites.

As one last reminder of the importance of website security, below is the advice given by a security expert to all WordPress users after 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 very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this article has shown you what to do to 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 WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, remember subscribe to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications via email whenever we publish new tutorials on WordPress security and reviews of new WordPress security plugins and solutions.

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