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

In early 2013 a worldwide brute-force attack hit WordPress installations across almost every WP host server in existence around the world.

These attacks were caused by computers infected with viruses and programmed to attack other sites (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 use to try and break into WordPress sites is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. This is done using scripts and software that can work through hundreds of possible logins in minutes.

If you’re using predictable usernames and predictable passwords, your site can be easily hacked by a software’s repeated attempts to guess your site’s login details.

This is called a “brute force” login attack.

Botnets – What Are They?

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.org)

”Botnets” are networks of computers that have been infected with malicious code or software, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, typically without the computer owners even being aware of this.

Botnets are regularly used to send mass spam emails from computers of compromised user accounts.

Below is a screenshot taken from a site that monitors online security showing the locations of the command centers of a botnet that has been actively infecting computer networks all around the world since 2009 called “Zeus” …

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

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

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

(WordPress is the world’s most used CMS which makes it a target for malicious attempts by hackers)

Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Use WordPress Anymore?

No. In fact, there are many good reasons why you should choose WordPress if you are concerned at all about the security of your website.

We explain why WordPress is a secure web platform in this article: Is WordPress A Secure Website Platform?

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

Mike Little, the co-founder of WordPress, said this 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 Site From Brute Force Attacks – Ten Security Measures

You may think that your site provides little to no value to hackers, but the reality is that every website is valuable to a malicious user.

If a hacker can hack into and gain any form of control of your blog, the blog can then be employed to attack other highly-valued sites.

Additional undesirable consequences of being hacked include being blacklisted by search engines, having stealthy spam links promoting things like casinos, discounted fashion, 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 reality is that brute-force software bots are very likely trying to hack into your web site while you are reading this page at this very moment. Whether they will hack into your site successfully or not, depends on how difficult or easy you will make things for them to keep persisting until they either work out a way to break in, or give up and go look for a less protected target.

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

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

(Hackertarget – WP Security Scan Screenshot source: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)

You will see that the test will display various results and details about your website setup …

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

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

(Product image source: BlogDefender site)

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 are all potentially useful information to hackers, as this informs them about exploitable security vulnerabilities, especially where site owners haven’t updated their files.

If your website is driven by WordPress and you are not taking appropriate steps to harden your site, it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point in time, someone will attempt to hack your website, because these brute force attacks are systematically targeting WordPress installations all the world!

When a website or blog is hacked, site owners will discover much to their dismay that they have been “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been altered or that everything has been entirely wiped out. Typically, most sites will be infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To avoid the heartache and aggravation (and significant loss of valuable business data) that comes with having your site being hacked into, below are ten simple, yet essential and effective security checks that will help to protect your WordPress site from being attacked by brute force botnet hacking attempts.

Note: A few of the recommended steps shown below require some technical skills to modify core WordPress and server files. If you have no web skills, 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.

***

Security Measure #1 – Get In Touch With Your Hosting Service Provider

Get in touch with your host and ask them exactly what security measures have been put in place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what they are doing to make sure that your WordPress sites get backed up.

It’s important to make sure that your webhosting provider regularly backs up your sites and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily get back your site.

Security Measure #2 – Back Up Your WordPress Data And Files And Keep Your Website Frequently Updated

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

A complete WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A proper WordPress maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP site backed up and up-to-date is vitally important for WordPress security. Screenshot source: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WP website regularly backed up and updated. WP 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 WP site maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure this 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 back up your site manually, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Backup, Duplicate & Keep Your WordPress Websites Protected With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

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

The large scale brute force attack on WordPress is mostly attempting to compromise website admin panels and gain access to sites by exploiting WP sites using “admin” as their user name.

For security reasons, never set up WordPress sites with the username “admin”. This is the first thing hackers will test. If your site’s user name is admin, then change it immediately.

We have created a simple step-by-step tutorial created especially for non-technical WordPress admin users that shows you how to change your username here: Changing Your Admin Username In WordPress

Security Measure #4 – Choose Strong Passwords

A “brute force” attack occurs when a malicious script continually and persistently tries to guess the right password and username characters that will unlock your site.

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 keep attacking your site until it eventually works out the combination.

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

Roboform is a password program you can use to help you generate different strong login passwords …

(Roboform is a password management tool that lets you easily create very secure passwords)

We have created a detailed tutorial created especially for non-technical WordPress admin users on how to change your password here: Changing Your WordPress Password

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

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

(WordPress WP Config file)

If a hacker breaks into your WordPress website, they will normally try to access your wp-config.php file, because this is the file that 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 attacks and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, you must 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

Delete or rename 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 remove these files, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Upgrade Your WordPress Blog, Plugins & Themes

Hackers search for vulnerabilities they can exploit in earlier versions of WordPress, including outdated versions of WP themes and plugins.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your Theme Editor

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

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

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

The WordPress theme editor feature allows anyone accessing your site’s admin to view and change your WP theme files, and create havoc on your site.

To prevent unauthorized people from being able to access your WordPress Theme editor, you will need to disable it. This can be done by editing your wp-config.php file.

Security Measure #9 – Prevent Access To Your Site’s Uploads Directory

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

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

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

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

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, adding a blank index.php file (this is literally a blank file named “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to ask for assistance from someone who knows what they are doing if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Install WordPress Security Plugins

Some great WordPress security plugins are available that will address most security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing hackers from accessing your site, protecting your files from brute-force attacks, preventing injections of code into files, etc.

Many 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 potential issues that could lead to hackers accessing your website files and damaging your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – WordPress total security software)

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

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

Blog Defender Security Suite

(Blog Defender)

Blog Defender is a suite 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 easily fix these …

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

WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress installation, WP plugins and WP themes, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to malicious by hackers and bots.

No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your web sites is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.

As a final reminder, below is the advice given by an expert on web security to all WordPress users following the global 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

***

As you can see, WordPress security is of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the above information 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, please subscribe to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications when we publish new tutorials on WordPress security and tutorials about new WordPress security plugins.

***

***