Being the world’s most used CMS makes WordPress a frequent target for hacker attacks.

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

These attacks were caused by botnets (networks of infected computers programmed to attack other sites with security vulnerabilities).

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)

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 can be achieved with scripts and software tools that automatically tries to guess hundreds of possible login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using easy-to-guess user names and predictable passwords, your website could be an easy target for hacking attempts.

This is called a “brute-force” attack.

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)

”Botnets” are networks of private computers that have been infected with malicious code or scripts, which are then controlled remotely as a group, typically without the unsuspecting computer owners even being aware that this is taking place.

Botnets are typically used to blast mass spam emails.

The screenshot below was taken from a site that monitors online security showing the locations of the command centers of ZeuS – a botnet that has been actively compromising computer networks all around the world since 2009 …

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

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

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

(WordPress is frequently the target of attacks by hackers)

Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Use WordPress Anymore?

No. In fact, there are lots of very good reasons why you should continue using WordPress if you are concerned about website security.

To understand why WordPress is a secure web platform, see this article: Can You Build A Secure Business Online Using WordPress?

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

Mike Little, one of the co-founders 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)

Protecting Your WordPress Site From Brute-Force Attacks – 10 Security Measures

Every website with a security vulnerability offers some value to hackers. If you think that the information in your website or blog is of little value to hackers, think again. Large, medium and small business web sites, personal blogs, government websites … even sites owned by online security and anti-hacking experts can and have been targeted.

If hackers can exploit a way to gain access and control of your web site, the website can then be employed as part of a larger network of “bots” to target larger and more valued sites.

Additional undesirable impacts of having your site hacked include getting blacklisted by Google, having spammy links advertising things like gambling, porn, etc. inserted in your content and page title and descriptions, malicious redirects to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious software on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasty things.

The truth is that malicious bots are very likely searching for security weaknesses and trying to hack into your website right now. Whether they will be successful depends on how hard you can make things for them to continue persisting until they either find a way to get access, or give up and decide to look for a more vulnerable target.

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

If you visit Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security check …

(WordPress Security Scan Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)

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

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

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

(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)

Being able 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 are all potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any potential security vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog is powered by WordPress and you are not precautionary steps to toughen up your site, then it’s practically guaranteed that, at some time in the near future, someone will attempt to hack your installation, because these brute-force attacks are systematically hitting WordPress sites worldwide!

When a website gets hacked, webmasters can find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been modified or that everything has been entirely wiped out. Often, compromised sites will be infected with malicious software without the owner even being aware of it.

To help avoid the heartache and aggravation that comes with discovering that your web site has been hacked into, we have listed below 10 simple, yet essential and effective security measures that will help to prevent your WordPress site from brute-force botnet attacks.

Note: Some of the recommended measures shown below require some technical skills to modify core WordPress and 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 professional WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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

Get in touch with your webhosting company and ask them exactly what systems are in place to help prevent your site from brute-force attacks, and what they are doing to make sure that your server files and data get regularly backed up.

Make sure that your webhosting company regularly backs up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can quickly and easily get back your files.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Full WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Regularly Updated

Never rely only on your host for site backups. Instead, learn how to manage your WordPress site or get this done for you and develop a habit of religiously performing a complete site maintenance routine on a regular basis (e.g. daily, weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A full WordPress site maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WordPress website or blog backed up and up-to-date. WordPress site 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 WordPress site maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your site 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 data manually, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Copy & Protect Your WP Website With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

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

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

For website security purposes, avoid setting up sites with the username admin. This is the first thing hackers will test. If your blog’s username is admin, then make sure you change it immediately.

We have created a detailed step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to change your WordPress admin username here: Changing Your WP Admin User Name To A More Secure Username

Security Measure #4 – Choose A Strong Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when a malicious script continually and persistently hits a username and password field with different character strings in an attempt to guess the right combination that will give them access to your website.

Unless you put some measure in 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 gets access.

Weak passwords, therefore, become very easy targets for hacking attacks. Make sure that you change your password to something containing at least eight characters long, with both upper and lowercase letters, and add a few “special” characters (%^#$@&*).

If you have trouble coming up with strong passwords or you are reluctant to set up different passwords for all your online logins, then use a password software tool like Roboform …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial for non-technical WP admin users that shows you how to change your admin password here: What To Do If You Need To Reset The Login Password

Security Measure #5 – Prevent Access To 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.

(WordPress WP Config file)

If a hacker breaks into your site, they will normally try to access your wp-config.php file, because this file contains important information about your site’s database, 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 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.

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 – Upgrade Your WordPress Files, Plugins & Themes To Their Latest Version

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

WordPress installations come with a built-in editor that allows administrators to edit plugin and theme files from the dashboard area.

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

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

The WordPress theme editor feature allows anyone accessing your site to view and edit your theme files, and create mayhem on your site.

To prevent 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 – Protect The WordPress Uploads Directory

The WordPress “uploads” directory contains all the media that gets uploaded to your website.

Normally, this folder is visible to online users. All a person needs to do to see all of the contents stored in the “uploads” folder is visit your directory using their browser …

(WordPress uploads folder)

If any directories in your website have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers, this could become a serious threat to 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, uploading a blank index.php file (this is literally an empty file called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to get professional help if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Use Security Plugins

There are a number of great WordPress security plugins available that specifically address most common security issues faced by WordPress site owners, such as preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to vital information about your site, protecting your website from botnets, preventing unauthorized file uploads, etc.

Many 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 site files and causing damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – security software for WordPress)

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

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

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin)

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

BlogDefender shows you where the security holes in your website are …

And lets you fix these quickly and easily …

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

WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like ensuring that your WordPress core files, WordPress plugins and WP themes are kept updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data protection 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, website security is something you simply 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 website security to all WordPress users after the mass 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 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 seek help from a professional WordPress security specialist, or search for a WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, don’t forget to subscribe to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications when we publish new tips on WordPress security and reviews of WordPress security plugins and solutions.

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