WordPress is often the target of malicious attacks by hackers.

In April 2013 a worldwide brute force attack struck WordPress installations across almost every WP hosting server in existence around the world.

These attacks were caused by infected computer networks programmed to attack other computers, also commonly known as “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)

One of the many ways hackers will attempt to break into WordPress sites is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. To do this, hackers use scripts and software tools 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 easily hacked by repeated attempts to work out 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)

A “Botnet” is a network of private computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious code, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, typically without the computer owners even being aware that this is taking place in their device.

Botnets are normally used used to send 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 compromising computer networks all around the world since 2009 called “Zeus” …

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

These botnet attacks on WordPress are highly distributed and well organized. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several webhosting companies in the initial attack, when the web was flooded with millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress site admin areas. The large-scale attack then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked per day.

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

(WordPress is often the target of large-scale malicious attacks by hackers, due to its global popularity)

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 web presence.

To learn why WordPress is a secure platform for websites, see this article: Is WordPress Secure?

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

Mike Little, the co-founder of WordPress, made the following 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)

Preventing Your WordPress Website From Brute-Force Attacks – 10 Security Points

Every website with a security vulnerability can can provide an opportunity to hackers. A compromised website presents malicious users with a platform to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and use your site to steal information from innocent people.

If someone can exploit a web software weakness and take over your blog, that site can then be employed to attack larger and more valued websites.

Additional undesirable impacts of having your website hacked include getting blacklisted by Google, having spammy links promoting things like viagra, cheap offers on brand names, etc. in your content, redirecting visitors to phishing sites or other websites, data exfiltration (stealing customer details or Personal Identifiable Information from your web applications), and lots of other nasty things.

The harsh reality is that software-driven bots are most likely trying to break into your website while you are reading this right now. Whether they can get into your site successfully will depend on how difficult you will make it for hackers and bots to keep persisting until they find a way to get access, or are forced to give up and decide to look for a less secure target.

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

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

(Hackertarget – WP Security Scan Product image: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the scan returns a number of results and information about your website …

(website security scan results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Product 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 are all valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog runs on WordPress and you are not proactive 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 targeting WordPress installations worldwide!

Typically, when a site gets hacked, webmasters will discover much to their dismay that they have been “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been modified or even that their content has been entirely wiped out. Often, most sites will become infected with malicious scripts without the owner even being aware that this has happened.

To avoid the heartache that comes with having your site being hacked into, we have listed below 10 essential and effective security checks that will help to prevent your WordPress site from being brute-force attacked.

Note: Some of the recommended steps listed below require some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress or 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 a professional WordPress service provider for assistance.

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Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Hosting Company

Get in touch with your host and ask them exactly what precautions have been put in place to protect your site from brute-force attacks, and what is done to make sure that your WordPress sites get regularly backed up.

It’s important to check that your hosting service regularly backs up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily get your files back.

Security Measure #2 – Back Up Your WordPress Data And Files And Keep Your Site Regularly Up-To-Date

Never rely just on your webhosting 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 complete site maintenance routine on a regular basis (e.g. daily, weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A complete WordPress 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 image: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WordPress web site backed up and updated. 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 WordPress site maintenance yourself, pay a professional to do it but make sure it gets done. Backing up your website is the second 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 free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Back Up, Clone & Keep Your WP Website Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

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

The large scale brute force attack on WordPress sites was mostly attempting to compromise website administrator panels and gain access to the site by exploiting installations with “admin” as their account name.

For security purposes, avoid setting up WordPress sites with the username “admin”. This is the first area hackers will test. If your blog’s user name is “admin”, then make sure you change this immediately.

We have created a detailed step-by-step tutorial for non-technical WordPress users that shows you how to change your WordPress admin username here: Changing Your WP User Name From Admin To Another Username

Security Measure #4 – Use A Strong Password

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

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

Weak passwords, therefore, make really easy targets for brute force attacks. Make sure that you change your password to something that is at least 8 or 9 characters long, with upper and lowercase letters, combined with a few “special” characters (%^#$@&*).

You can use a password program like Roboform to help you generate strong passwords …

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

For a step-by-step tutorial for non-technical WordPress users on how to change your WordPress admin password, go here: Changing Your Password

Security Measure #5 – Prevent The wp-config.php File From Being Easily Accessed

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

(WordPress WP Config file)

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

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 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 Installation Files

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

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

Security Measure #7 – Keep Your WordPress Software, Plugins And Themes Up-To-Date

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your Theme Editor

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

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor via the main menu)

This allows anyone accessing your blog’s admin to view and edit your WordPress theme templates, or cause havoc on your site.

If you want 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 – Remove Access To The WordPress Uploads Folder

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

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

(WordPress has an uploads folder where your media files are stored)

If any files stored in his folder have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users, anyone could upload unauthorized file types or compromise the security of your website.

Protecting your directories will prevent unauthorized people from accessing 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 get professional help if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Install WordPress Security Plugins

A number of WordPress security plugins are available that specifically address common security issues WordPress site owners face, such as preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to vital areas of your site, protecting your website from malicious scripts, preventing unauthorized file uploads, etc.

Most WordPress plugins address some but not all areas of WordPress security. One WordPress 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 irreparable damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – complete security software solution 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 great security plugin you may want to consider using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender)

This product is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.

BlogDefender scans you web site for security weaknesses …

And then shows you how to quickly and easily fix these …

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

WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress software, WP plugins and themes updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to malicious 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, securing your sites is something you simply cannot ignore.

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 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 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 professional WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, don’t forget to subscribe to WPCompendium.org to be notified whenever we publish new tips on WordPress security and tutorials about new security plugins.

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