WordPress is frequently the target of attacks by hackers, due to its popularity.

In 2013 a global brute force attack began hitting WordPress installations across almost every WP host server in existence.

These attacks were caused by computer networks infected with viruses and programmed to attack other sites (called “botnets”).

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)

There are many methods hackers use to try and break into WordPress sites. One of these is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. To attempt this, hackers use software programs and scripts that can guess hundreds of login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using weak usernames and weak passwords that are easy to guess, your site can be an easy target for hacking attempts.

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 software, which are then controlled remotely as a group, typically without the unsuspecting computer owners’ knowledge.

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

The screenshot below was taken from a site that monitors online security showing the locations of the command centers of ZeuS – a botnet that has been actively infecting computer networks all around the world since 2009 …

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

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

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

(WordPress powers millions of websites worldwide, which makes it a target for hacking attempts)

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

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

To understand why WordPress is a secure web platform, see this article: How Secure Is WordPress?

It’s important to note that, in the case of the mass brute-force attack described above, no specific WordPress vulnerability was being exploited (the same script was also targeting sites built using other platforms 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)

Protecting Your WordPress Site From Brute-Force Attacks – 10 Security Points

You may think that your website has no value to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, every website provides an opportunity to gain some benefit at your expense.

If hackers can discover a security opening in your system that allows them to access and control your website or blog, your website or blog can then be employed as part of a larger network of “bots” to target more valued websites.

Additional undesirable results of having your site hacked include being blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links advertising things like gambling, discounted fashion, etc. in your content and meta data, redirecting visitors to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malware on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasty things.

The harsh reality is that hackers are trying to break into your site at this very moment. Whether they will hack into your site successfully or not, will depend on how hard or easy you have made things for them to continue trying until they work out how to break in, or decide to look for a less secure target.

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

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

(Hackertarget – Website Security Check Product image: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the scan will display a number of results and details about your website setup …

(Hackertarget – website security check results. Source: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Product image: Blog Defender)

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 can be useful information to hackers, as these can inform them about exploitable vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog is driven by WordPress and you are not taking appropriate steps to bolster the security of your site, then it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these brute force attacks are systematically hitting WordPress installations all the world!

Whenever a site gets hacked, webmasters will find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been altered or even that their content has been entirely wiped out. Typically, compromised sites will become infected with malicious scripts without the owner even being aware of it.

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

Note: Some of the measures listed below require some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress and server files. If you lack these technical skills, or don’t want to mess around with code on your site, then ask your web host or search for a professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

***

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

Contact your hosting company and ask them exactly what security systems are in place to protect your site from being attacked, and what is done to ensure that your files and data are regularly being backed up.

It is important to make sure that your webhosting service is regularly backing up your sites and that, if anything goes wrong, you can quickly and easily get your files and data back.

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

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

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A proper WP site maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important it is to maintain your WordPress website 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 WP maintenance yourself, pay a professional to do it but make sure it gets done. Backing up your site is the second most important thing you must do after making sure that you still have a pulse!

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Clone & Protect Your WP Websites With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

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

The mass brute force botnet attack on WordPress sites was mostly attempting to compromise website administrator panels and gain access to sites by exploiting sites that used “admin” as the account name.

For website security reasons, avoid installing 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 step-by-step tutorial for admin users on how to change your login username, go here: Changing Your WP User Name From Admin To A Different User Name

Security Measure #4 – Make Sure Your Password Is Secure

A “brute force” attack occurs when a malicious script continually hits a login or password field with different character strings in an attempt to guess the right login combination that will give them access 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 effective ways to do this), the “bot” will just keep attacking your site until it eventually “cracks” the code.

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

You can use a password software tool like Roboform to generate secure login passwords …

(Roboform is a password management tool that lets you create different passwords)

For a step-by-step tutorial for non-technical admin users that shows you how to change your login password, go here: What To Do If You Need To Change The Login Password

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

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 file)

If hackers break into your site, they will typically try to access your 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 attacks and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, you must prevent your wp-config.php file from being easily accessed. 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 WP Installation Files

Delete or rename 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 delete these files, then just rename them.

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

Hackers search for vulnerabilities in earlier versions of WordPress that they can exploit, including out-of-date versions of WordPress themes and plugins.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

WordPress installations come with a built-in editor that allows you to edit theme and plugin files from the dashboard.

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

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

This means that anyone logging into your blog can see and modify all of your WordPress theme templates, or create mayhem on your site.

If you want to prevent people from accessing the 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 Site’s Uploads Directory

The WordPress “uploads” directory contains all the media files that get uploaded to your blog.

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

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

If any files stored in his folder have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers, anyone can upload unauthorized file types to 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 named “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to seek professional help if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Use Security Plugins

A number of great WordPress security plugins are available that specifically address common security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing hackers from accessing your site, protecting your website from malicious scripts, preventing unauthorized file uploads, etc.

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

(SecureScanPro – complete security software for WordPress)

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

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

Blog Defender Security Suite For WordPress

(Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin)

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

BlogDefender scans you web site for security weaknesses …

And lets you fix these quickly …

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

WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like ensuring that your WordPress software, plugins and themes are kept up-to-date, tightening file and data protection 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, securing your website or blog is something you cannot ignore.

As one last reminder, below is the advice given by a website security expert to all WordPress users following the global brute force attacks 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 information in this article has provided you with the initial steps you need to take 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 technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, remember subscribe to WPCompendium.org to be notified when we publish new articles on WordPress security and tutorials about WordPress security plugins and solutions.

***

***