When you are the world’s leading content management system and the preferred online publishing platform for millions of businesses and loved by thousands of web developers and website designers, it’s inevitable that at some point in time, WordPress will become a target for attacks from hackers.

In early 2013 a large-scale brute force attack began hitting WordPress installations across virtually every WP host server in existence around the world.

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

How To Protect Your WordPress Site From A Brute-Force Attack

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)

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 done using scripts and tools that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login permutations in minutes.

If you’re not using strong usernames or unguessable passwords, your site could be easily hacked by repeated attempts to work out your site’s login details.

This is called a “brute-force” 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 software, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, typically without the computer owners’ knowledge or awareness.

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

The screenshot below was taken from an online 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 infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009. Image: SecureList.com)

These were highly distributed and well organized botnet attacks on WordPress. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several hosting companies in the initial attack, when millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress user administration areas occurred. The worldwide brute force attacks then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked per day.

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

(WordPress is the world’s most used CMS making it an obvious target for hacking attacks)

Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Use WordPress Anymore?

No. In fact, there are lots of great reasons why you should choose WordPress if you are concerned at all about the security of your online business.

To learn what makes WordPress a very secure web platform, read this article: Can You Build A Secure Business Online Using WordPress?

It’s important to understand 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, one of the co-founders 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 Website From Brute-Force Attacks – 10 Security Points

Every site with a security vulnerability provides some type of opportunity to hackers. No website is completely safe from being attacked. Large, medium and small sites, personal blogs, government websites … even web sites owned by online security experts can and have been targeted.

If a hacker can find a way to break in and take over your web site, that blog can then be used as a “bot” in a planned cyberattack against more valuable sites.

Additional undesirable effects of having your site hacked and your site security compromised include being blacklisted by Google, having stealthy spam links advertising things like casinos, discounted fashion, etc. inserted into your content, malicious redirects to phishing sites or other websites, drive-by downloads (adding malware on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasty things.

The truth is that hackers are most likely trying to hack into your website or blog at this very moment. Whether they can get into your site successfully or not, depends on how difficult you can make it for hackers to keep trying until they either find how to get access, or are forced to give up and go 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 …

(WordPress Security Scan Source: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Hackertarget – WP security scan results. Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)

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 these can inform them about exploitable holes or weaknesses, especially in older versions.

If your website runs on WordPress and you are not taking steps to bolster the security of your site, it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point, someone will attempt to hack your installation, because these brute force attacks are systematically hitting WordPress installations all the world!

Whenever a website gets broken into, webmasters will find themselves completely “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been modified or even entirely wiped out. Often, most compromised sites will be infected with malicious software or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To help avoid the heartache that comes with having your website or blog being hacked into, below are 10 simple, yet essential and effective security measures 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 need some technical skills to modify core WordPress and server files. If you have no web skills, or don’t want to mess around with file code, 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 – Contact Your Hosting Provider

Contact your hosting provider and ask them what precautions have been put into place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what they do to ensure that your WordPress sites get backed up.

Make sure that your host is backing up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily recover your files and data.

Security Measure #2 – Back Up Your WordPress Data And Files And Keep Your Site Regularly Updated

Never rely just on your web host for your 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 full site maintenance routine on a regular basis (e.g. weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A full WP maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WP site regularly backed up and updated. WP site maintenance is not hard 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, pay someone to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your website 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 files manually, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Backup, Duplicate & Keep Your WP Site Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

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

The brute-force attack on WordPress sites was mostly an attempt to compromise site admin panels and gain access to the site by exploiting WP sites that used “admin” as the account name.

For security reasons, never set up WordPress sites with the username admin. This is the first area of potential vulnerability hackers will test. If your blog’s user name is “admin”, change this immediately.

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial created especially for non-technical admin users that shows you how to change your admin username, go here: Changing Your Admin User Name In WordPress

Security Measure #4 – Use A Strong Password

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

Unless some measure is put into place to block the brute-force attack from happening (see further below for a couple of simple and effective suggestions for doing this), the “bot” will just keep attacking your site until it eventually works out the combination.

Passwords that are easy to guess, therefore, become really easy targets for bot attacks. Make sure that you change your password to a string that contains at least 8 characters long, and that includes upper and lowercase letters, combined with a few “special” characters (%^#$@&*).

Roboform is a password management software that lets you create different unbreakable passwords …

(You can use a password management software tool like Roboform to generate hard-to-crack passwords)

We have created a detailed step-by-step tutorial created especially for admin users that shows you how to change your password here: How To Reset WordPress Passwords

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 WordPress options.

(wp-config.php)

If a hacker breaks into your WordPress website, they will 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 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 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

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

These files can be removed after installation. If you don’t want to remove these files, then just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Update Your WordPress Installation, Themes & Plugins

Hackers look for vulnerabilities in older versions of WordPress that they can exploit, including outdated versions of WP themes and plugins.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The WordPress Theme Editor

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

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

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

The WordPress theme editor allows anyone accessing your site’s admin to view and change your theme templates, or cause havoc on your site.

To prevent 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 – Remove Access To Your WordPress Uploads Folder

The WordPress “uploads” folder stores all the media files that get uploaded to your website.

Normally, this folder is visible to anyone online. All a person needs to do to see the contents stored in your site’s “uploads” directory is visit the directory using a web browser …

(WordPress uploads folder)

If any files stored in his folder have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers, this can threaten the security of your website.

Protecting your directories will prevent online users 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 called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to seek professional help if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Install WordPress Security Plugins

A number of security plugins for WordPress are available that specifically address common security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing hackers from gaining access to vital areas of your site, protecting your site from malicious software, preventing injections of code into files, etc.

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

(SecureScanPro – WP complete security software solution)

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

Another plugin you may want to look at using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender Security Product Suite For WordPress

(Blog Defender)

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

BlogDefender shows you where potential security weaknesses in your website are …

And lets you quickly and easily fix these …

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

WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress software, plugins and WordPress themes, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to attacks 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, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of website security.

As one last reminder, below is the advice given by a web security expert to all WordPress users following the worldwide 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 of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this article has provided you with the initial guidelines and direction you need to keep your WordPress site protected from brute-force attacks. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please consult a WordPress security specialist, or search for a WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, please subscribe to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications when we publish new tips on WordPress security and tutorials about new security plugins.

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