When you are the world’s most popular content management system and the preferred online publishing platform used by millions of websites and loved by thousands of web developers and web designers, it’s inevitable that at some point in time, WordPress will become an easy target for attacks from hackers wanting to score a “big win”.

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

These attacks were caused by computer networks infected with viruses and programmed to attack other installations (called “botnets”).

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)

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 is achieved using scripts and tools that automatically tries to guess hundreds of possible login combinations in minutes.

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

This is called a “brute-force” attack.

What Is A Botnet?

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 infected with malicious code or software, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, often without the computer owners’ knowledge.

Botnets are typically used to send mass spam emails.

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

(The Zeus botnet has been actively infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009. Screenshot image: SecureList.com)

The botnet attacks on WordPress sites were 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 users administration areas. The large-scale attacks continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked every day.

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

(Being the world’s most popular content management system 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 many very good reasons why you should choose WordPress if you are concerned at all about the security of your online presence.

We explain what makes WordPress a very secure platform for websites in this article: Can You Build A Secure Business Online Using WordPress?

It’s important to note that, in the case of the 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, the co-founder of WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, made this comment 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)

How To Protect Your WordPress Blog From Brute-Force Attacks – Ten Security Checks

Every website with a vulnerability can be seen as a potential opportunity to hackers. A vulnerable blog not only presents hackers opportunities to improve their hacking skills and claim “bragging rights” among their peers, but it can also serve as a resource for denial of service attacks, distributing malware and engaging in information theft.

If hackers can find a vulnerability that allows them to compromise the control of your blog, your website can then be employed to target more valued web sites.

Additional undesirable results of having your site hacked and your site security compromised include being blacklisted by Google, having spammy links promoting things like casinos, porn, etc. inserted into your content, malicious redirects to phishing sites and other websites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious software on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasty things.

The reality is that hackers are most likely looking for exploits and trying to hack into your site at this very moment. Whether they will hack in depends on how hard or easy you can make it for hackers or botnets to continue trying until they either can work out a way to get in, or are forced to give up and decide to look for an easier target.

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

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

(WordPress Security Check Screenshot: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)

You will see that the check returns various results and details about your WordPress setup …

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

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

(Screenshot image: 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 be potentially useful information to hackers, as these can inform them about any vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your website runs on WordPress and you are not precautionary steps to harden your site, then it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these attacks are systematically hitting WordPress installations worldwide!

Typically, when a website gets compromised, webmasters will discover much to their dismay that they have been “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been vandalized or even that their content has been completely wiped out. Often, most compromised sites will become infected with malicious software or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To avoid the heartache that comes with discovering that your website or blog 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 below require some technical skills to modify core WordPress and/or server files. If you have no technical skills, or don’t want to mess around with code on your site, then ask your web host or search for a WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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Security Measure #1 – Get In Touch With Your Webhosting Service

Contact your hosting service and ask them what precautions are in place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what they do to ensure that your files and data get regularly backed up.

Check that your host regularly backs up your server files and that, if anything should happen, you can quickly and easily get your files and data back.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Regular WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Or Blog Regularly Maintained

You should never rely on your hosting provider for site backups. Instead, learn how to manage your WordPress site or pay someone to get this done for you and maintain a habit of performing a full site maintenance routine frequently (e.g. 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 software, plugins and themes are up-to-date,
• etc …

A complete WP maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP website or blog fully backed up and up-to-date is vitally important for WordPress security. Screenshot: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WordPress installation frequently backed up and up-to-date. WP maintenance is not hard to do or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website or blog. If you don’t want to learn how to do WP site maintenance yourself, pay a professional to do it but make sure it gets done. Backing up your site is the next 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 plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Backup, Copy And Protect Your WordPress Sites With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

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

The brute force botnet attack on WordPress sites was mostly an attempt to compromise website admin panels by exploiting WP 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 of potential vulnerability hackers will test. If your blog’s username is admin, then make sure you change this immediately.

We have created a simple step-by-step tutorial for WordPress users on how to change your admin username here: Changing Your WordPress Admin Username

Security Measure #4 – Choose A Strong Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when a malicious script continually and persistently tries to guess the right combination of characters in a username and password that will give the hacker access to your website.

Unless some measure is put into place to prevent the brute force attack from happening (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 breaks into your admin area.

Passwords that are easy to guess, therefore, become really easy targets for brute force attacks. Make sure that you change your password to something containing at least eight or nine characters long, with both upper and lowercase letters, combined with “special” characters (^%$#&@*).

Roboform is a password tool that lets you easily generate strong passwords …

(Roboform is a password management tool you can use to create different strong login passwords)

We have created a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to change your password here: What To Do If You Need To Reset Your Password In WordPress

Security Measure #5 – Protect Your WP Config File

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.php)

If a hacker breaks into your WordPress website, they will try to access the wp-config.php file, because this file contains your database information, 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 being attacked and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, you must prevent your wp-config.php file from being easily 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 WP Installation Files

Delete or rename 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, then just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Upgrade Your WordPress Installation, Plugins & Themes To Their Latest Version

Hackers look for vulnerabilities in previous versions of WordPress that can be exploited, including outdated versions of WP plugins and themes.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

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

You can access your WordPress Theme Editor by selecting Appearance > Editor in your dashboard menu …

(The WordPress theme editor can be accessed via the WP admin menu)

This allows anyone accessing your blog to view and make changes to your WordPress files, and cause havoc on your site.

To prevent 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 Your Site’s Uploads Folder

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

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

(WordPress uploads folder)

If any directories in your website have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers, anyone could upload unauthorized file types or compromise 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 an empty file named “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 – WordPress Security Plugins

Some great WordPress security plugins are available that specifically address common security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to vital information about your site, protecting your site from malicious exploits, preventing unauthorized file uploads, etc.

Most WordPress plugins address some but not all areas of WordPress security. One WordPress 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 – complete security software solution for WordPress)

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

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

Blog Defender Security Suite For WordPress Web Sites

(Blog Defender WordPress Security Suite)

Blog Defender is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.

BlogDefender shows you where potential security weaknesses in your WordPress installation are …

And lets you easily fix these …

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

WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like ensuring that your WP core files, plugins and WordPress themes are kept up-to-date, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to malicious 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, securing your website or blog is something you cannot afford to ignore.

As a final reminder of the importance of keeping your websites protected, below is the advice given by an expert on web security to all WordPress users following the global 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 of the utmost importance 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.

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

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