WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system which makes it an easy target for hacker attacks.

In April 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to a worldwide brute force attack.

These attacks were caused by computers infected with malware and programmed to attack other vulnerable sites, 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)

There are many ways hackers try to break into WordPress sites. One of these is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. To achieve this, hackers use scripts and tools that can work through hundreds of possible logins in minutes.

If you’re using obvious user names and passwords that are easy to guess, your site can be easily hacked by a malicious software’s persistent attempts to work out 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)

A “Botnet” is a network of computers that have been infected with malicious code or scripts, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, often without the unsuspecting computer owners even being aware that this is going on.

Botnets are normally used 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 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 compromising computer networks all around the world since 2009. Image source: SecureList.com)

These were highly distributed and well organized attacks on WordPress. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several hosting 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 brute force attacks then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress sites being hacked each day.

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

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

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

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

We explain what makes WordPress a very secure web platform in this article: Can You Build A Secure Business Online Using WordPress?

It’s important to note that, in the case of April 2013 brute force 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 with Matt Mullenweg, 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)

Preventing Your WordPress Site From Being Brute-Force Attacked – 10 Security Measures

Every website with a vulnerability can be seen as a potential opportunity to hackers. A vulnerable website or blog not only offers hackers opportunities to improve their hacking skills and win “respect” from their peers, but it can also serve as a resource for launching denial of service attacks, spreading malware and as a source for creating information theft.

If hackers can discover a vulnerability in your setup that allows them to gain stealth control of your blog, that web site can then be used to target larger and more valued web sites.

Additional undesirable results of having your website hacked include being blacklisted by Google, having stealthy spam links promoting things like gambling, porn, etc. in your content, malicious redirects to phishing sites and other websites, data exfiltration (stealing customer details or Personal Identifiable Information from your web applications), and lots of other nasties.

The harsh reality is that brute-force software bots are very likely trying to hack into your web site at this very moment. Whether they will hack in successfully or not, depends on how difficult or easy you will make it for hackers to continue persisting until they work out how to get access, or give up and go look for a less secure target.

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

If you visit Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security scan …

(WP Security Scan Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the check will yield various results and information about your site setup …

(Hackertarget – website security scan results. Image source: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Screenshot: BlogDefender website)

Being able 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 can all be valuable information to hackers, as these can inform them about exploitable security weaknesses, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog is driven by WordPress and you’re not proactive steps to harden your site, then we can practically guarantee that, at some time in the near future, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these attacks are systematically hitting WordPress sites around the world!

Typically, when a website or blog is compromised, blog owners can find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been altered or that everything has been entirely wiped out. Often, sites will become infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

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

Note: Some of the recommended steps below need 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 code on your site, then ask your web host or search for a WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

***

Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Web Host

Contact your webhosting service and ask them what security measures have been put into place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what is done to ensure that your files and data get regularly backed up.

Check that your hosting provider is regularly backing up your sites and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily get back your site.

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

Never rely on your webhosting company for your site backups. Instead, learn how to maintain your WordPress site or pay someone to get this done for you and maintain a habit of performing a full WordPress site maintenance routine on a regular basis (e.g. weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

A complete 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 WP software, plugins and themes are up-to-date,
• etc …

A complete WordPress site maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important maintaining your WordPress site backed up and up-to-date is. WordPress site 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 WP maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your website is the next most important thing you should do after making sure that your heart is still beating!

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone & Keep Your WordPress Web Site Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

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

the worldwide brute force botnet attack on WordPress is mostly attempting to compromise website administrator panels and gain access to sites by exploiting WP installations that used “admin” as their account name.

For website security reasons, don’t set up a WordPress site with the username admin. This is the first area hackers will test. If your blog’s user name is “admin”, you will need to change it immediately.

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

Security Measure #4 – Choose Strong Passwords

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

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 persist in attacking your site until it eventually “cracks” the code.

Weak passwords, therefore, are really easy targets for hacking attacks. Make sure that you change your password combination to something that contains at least 8 or 9 characters long, with upper and lowercase letters, and “special” characters (%^#$@&*).

You can use a password management tool like Roboform to generate passwords …

(You can use a password software tool like Roboform to create unguessable passwords)

We have created a detailed tutorial that shows you how to change your login password here: Changing Login Passwords In WordPress

Security Measure #5 – Deny Access To Your WP Config File

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

(wp-config.php file)

If a hacker breaks into your site, they will normally look for the 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.

In order to protect your WordPress site from being attacked and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, you must prevent people getting to your wp-config.php file. 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.

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

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

Hackers look for vulnerabilities they can exploit in previous versions of WordPress, including out-of-date versions of WordPress themes and plugins.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your WordPress Theme Editor

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

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

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

This allows anyone accessing your site to view and modify your files, or create mayhem 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 Your Site’s Uploads Directory

The “uploads” directory stores all the media files that get uploaded to your site.

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

(WordPress uploads directory)

If any directories in your website have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users, this could compromise the security of your site.

Protecting your directories will prevent online users from viewing 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 file with nothing in it called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to get professional assistance if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Install WordPress Security Plugins

Several security plugins for WordPress are available that specifically address many common security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing unauthorized users from accessing your site, protecting your files from brute-force attacks, 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 – security plugin for WordPress)

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

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

Blog Defender Security Suite

(Blog Defender)

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

BlogDefender shows you where potential security weaknesses in your web site are …

And lets you quickly fix these …

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

WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress installation, WP plugins and WordPress themes up-to-date, tightening file and data security and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.

Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of web security.

As one last reminder, below is the advice given by an expert on web security to all WordPress users after the large-scale 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

***

As you can see, website security is very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this 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 WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

We also recommend subscribing to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications via email whenever we publish new information on WordPress security and tutorials about new WordPress security plugins and solutions.

***

***