Being the world’s most used content management system makes WordPress a frequent target for malicious attacks by hackers.

In early 2013 a large-scale brute-force attack struck WordPress installations on virtually every web host in existence.

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

Brute Force Attacks – An Overview

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 software tools that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login combinations in minutes.

If you’re not using strong usernames or unguessable passwords, your website can be easily hacked by repeated 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 compromised and infected with malicious code or software, which are then controlled remotely as a group, typically without the computer owners’ knowledge.

Botnets are typically used to send out mass spam emails from the infected computers of compromised user accounts.

The screenshot below was 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 globe since 2009 …

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

These were highly distributed and well organized attacks. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several webhosting companies in the initial attack alone, when the web was flooded with millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress users admin areas. The large-scale brute force attacks continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress sites being hacked every day.

Coverage of the April 2013 brute force botnet attack was reported by all the major webhosting companies, as well as the 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 the world’s most used content management system which makes it an obvious target for attacks by hackers)

Does This Mean WordPress Is Not Secure And We Should Stop Using It?

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

We explain what makes WordPress a very secure web platform in this article: Is WordPress Secure?

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

Mike Little, one of the co-founders 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)

Protecting Your WordPress Site From Being Brute-Force Attacked – Ten Security Points

Every website with a vulnerability can can provide an opportunity to hackers. A compromised blog not only offers hackers opportunities to improve their skills and claim “bragging rights” amongst their peers, but it can also serve as a platform for launching distributed denial of service attacks, spreading malware and engaging in information theft.

If hackers can exploit a web security flaw, that website or blog can then be employed as a “bot” in a planned cyber-attack against larger and more valued websites.

Additional undesirable impacts of being hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by Google, having spammy links promoting things like online meds, porn, etc. inserted in your content and page title and descriptions, redirecting visitors to phishing sites or other websites, drive-by downloads (adding malware on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasty things.

The harsh reality is that software-driven bots are probably trying to hack into your blog right now. Whether they can hack into your site successfully or not, depends on how difficult you will make it for hackers to keep trying until they work out how to get in, or give up and decide to look for a less protected target.

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

Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …

(Website Security Check Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the test returns a number of results and information about your site …

(WP security check results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Product image source: Blog Defender)

Being able to see which 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 valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any potential security weaknesses, especially where site owners haven’t updated their sites.

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

Whenever a website or blog is compromised, webmasters will find themselves completely “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their content has been altered or that everything has been entirely wiped out. Typically, most compromised sites will be infected with malicious software without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To help avoid the heartache and frustration (and significant financial loss) of discovering that your web site has been hacked into, we have listed below 10 essential and effective security checks that will help to protect your WordPress site from brute-force attacks.

Note: A few of the measures shown below require some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress and/or server files. If you are not technical-minded, or don’t want to mess around with file code, then ask your web host or search for a WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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

Get in touch with your hosting provider and ask them exactly what measures they have put into place to protect your site from being attacked, and what they are doing to ensure that your files and data get regularly backed up.

Check that your hosting company backs up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can quickly and easily recover your site.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Complete WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Or Blog Regularly Up-To-Date

You should never rely on your webhosting service for site backups. Instead, learn how to maintain and manage your WordPress site or pay someone to get this service done for you and maintain a habit of religiously performing a complete site maintenance routine frequently (e.g. weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A proper WordPress site maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WP web site fully 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 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 must do after making sure that your heart is still beating!

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Backup, Duplicate And Keep Your WordPress Website Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

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

The large scale brute-force botnet attack on WordPress sites was mostly attempting to compromise website administrator panels by exploiting WP sites using “admin” as their username.

For reasons of website security, avoid installing WordPress sites with the username admin. This is the first thing hackers will test. If your blog’s user name is admin, then make sure you change it immediately.

For a simple step-by-step tutorial for non-technical admin users that shows you how to change your WordPress username, go here: Changing Your Admin Username In WordPress To A Different User Name

Security Measure #4 – Avoid Weak Passwords

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

Unless some measure is put into 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 breaks into your admin area.

Passwords that are easy to guess, therefore, become really easy targets for attacks. Make sure that you change your password combination to something that contains at least 8 characters long, and that includes upper and lowercase letters, combined with “special” characters (e.g. %, $, *, etc).

You can use a password software tool like Roboform to create strong passwords …

(You can use a password tool like Roboform to generate strong passwords)

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

Security Measure #5 – Prevent Your wp-config.php File From Being Visible

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

(WordPress WP Config file)

If hackers break into your site, 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 a hacker 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, 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 – Rename Or Delete Unnecessary WordPress Installation Files

Delete or rename your install.php, upgrade.php and readme.html files.

These files are not required after installation and can be deleted. If you don’t want to remove these files, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Upgrade Your WordPress Blog, Plugins And Themes To Their Latest Version

Hackers search for vulnerabilities in outdated versions of WordPress that can be exploited, including out-of-date versions of WP plugins and themes.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The WordPress Theme Editor

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

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor via the WP dashboard menu)

This allows anyone accessing your blog to view and modify all of your WP theme files, and cause havoc on your site.

If you want to prevent people from being able to access 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 The WordPress Uploads Folder

The “uploads” folder 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” directory is navigate to your directory using a web browser …

(WordPress uploads folder)

If any files stored in his folder have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers or malicious users, this could become a serious threat to 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 a blank file named “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to consult a professional if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Install WordPress Security Plugins

A number of great WordPress security plugins are available that will address many common security issues faced by WordPress website owners, such as preventing hackers from accessing your site, protecting your site from malicious scripts, preventing injections of code into files, etc.

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

(SecureScanPro – WP security software solution)

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 look at using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender Security Plugin For WordPress Sites

(Blog Defender Security Solution For WordPress)

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

BlogDefender scans you WordPress installation for potential security weaknesses …

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

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 updating your WordPress installation, plugins and WordPress themes, 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, web security is something you cannot afford to ignore.

As one last 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 mass 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, this information will help keep your WordPress site protected from brute force attacks. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please consult a professional WordPress security specialist, or search for a WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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

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