WordPress is frequently the target of attacks by hackers.

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

These attacks were caused by computer networks infected with viruses and programmed to attack other sites, also commonly known as “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)

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. To achieve this, hackers use software programs that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using obvious user names and weak passwords that are easy to guess, your website can be an easy target for hacking attempts.

This is called a “brute-force” attack.

Botnet – What Is This?

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 scripts or software code, which are then controlled remotely as a group, often without the unsuspecting computer owners even being aware that this is taking place.

Botnets are often used to send mass spam emails.

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 …

(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. 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 user admin areas took place. The large-scale attacks continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress blogs being hacked every day.

Coverage of this mass brute force attack was reported by all of the major webhosting companies, as well as the leading technology publications, such as Forbes, TechNews Daily, Tech Crunch, PC Magazine, BBC News, 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 attempted hacker attacks)

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 web presence.

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

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

Mike Little, the co-founder of WordPress, 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)

How To Protect Your WordPress Website From Being Brute Force Attacked – 10 Security Points

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

If someone can exploit a vulnerability that allows them to take over and control your web site, your website can then be used to attack larger and more valuable web sites.

Additional undesirable effects of having your site hacked include being blacklisted by Google, having stealthy spam links promoting things like online meds, porn, etc. inserted in your content and meta data, redirecting visitors to phishing sites or other websites, drive-by downloads (adding malware on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasty things.

The reality is that software-driven bots are very likely searching for security weaknesses and trying to break into your blog right now. Whether they can get in successfully or not, will depend on how hard you can make it for them to keep persisting until they can either work out how to break in, or are forced to give up and go look for a less protected target.

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

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

(Hackertarget – Website Security Check Screenshot: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)

You will see that the check will return a number of results and information about your website …

(WordPress security check results. Source: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you are able to see all of this information about your WordPress website, then hackers can too.

(Image source: BlogDefender.com)

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 in your site can all be potentially useful information to hackers, as this informs them about any exploitable security vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog is powered by WordPress and you’re not taking appropriate steps to harden your site, it’s practically guaranteed that, at some time in the near future, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these attacks are systematically targeting WordPress installations worldwide!

When a site is broken into, webmasters can find themselves completely “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been interfered with or even that their content has been completely wiped out. Often, most compromised sites will be infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner even being aware that a security breach has happened.

To avoid the heartache and frustration (and significant financial loss) that comes with 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 being brute-force attacked.

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

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Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Host

Get in touch with your host and ask them what security systems have been put into place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what is done to ensure that your site files are being regularly backed up.

It is important to check that your hosting provider is regularly backing up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily get back your files and data.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Complete WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Frequently Updated

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

A full WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

• All unnecessary files and data are removed,
• All WP 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 maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important it is to maintain your WP web site frequently backed up and updated. WP site maintenance is not hard to do 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 site maintenance yourself, pay someone to do it but make sure it gets done. Backing up your website is the second most important thing you must do after making sure that you are still breathing!

If you don’t want to back up your site manually, there are a number of free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone & Protect Your WordPress Websites And Blogs With Backup Creator WP Plugin

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

the worldwide brute force botnet attack on WordPress sites was mostly an attempt to compromise website admin panels by exploiting WordPress sites that used “admin” as their username.

For reasons of website security, don’t set up WordPress sites with the username admin. This is the first area of potential vulnerability hackers will test. If your site’s user name is admin, then change this immediately.

We have created a step-by-step tutorial on how to change your admin username here: Changing Your Admin Username In WordPress To Another User Name

Security Measure #4 – Change Your Password

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

Unless you put some measure in 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 persist in attacking your site until it eventually works out the combination.

Weak passwords, therefore, become very easy targets for brute force attacks. Make sure that you change your password to something that is at least 8 or 9 characters long, and that includes upper and lowercase letters, combined with “special” characters (e.g. ^, $, *, etc).

You can use a password tool like Roboform to help you generate strong passwords …

(Roboform is a password software you can use to generate different strong login passwords)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial for non-technical admin users on how to change your password, go here: What To Do If You Need To Reset Your Password

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

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

(WordPress WP Config file)

If a hacker breaks into your WordPress site, they will look for your wp-config.php file, because this file 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 being attacked and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, 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 and can be deleted. If you don’t want to delete these files, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Keep Your WordPress Site, Themes And Plugins Up-To-Date

Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities they can exploit in earlier versions of WordPress, including out-of-date versions of WordPress themes and plugins.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

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

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

(The WordPress theme editor is accessible using the main menu)

This allows anyone accessing your blog’s admin to view and edit your WordPress theme templates, or cause havoc on your site.

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

Security Measure #9 – Protect The WordPress Uploads Folder

The “uploads” folder stores all the media that gets uploaded to your WordPress site.

Normally, this folder is visible to all users online. All someone has to do to view the contents in your site’s “uploads” directory is navigate to your directory using their web browser …

(WordPress uploads directory)

If any files stored in his folder have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers, anyone can upload unauthorized file types or compromise the security of your website.

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 blank file called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to hire a professional if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Install Security Plugins

There are a number of WordPress security plugins available that specifically address most common security issues faced by WordPress website owners, such as preventing hackers from accessing vital areas of your site, protecting your files from botnets, preventing unauthorized file uploads, 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 site files and causing damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – security software solution for WordPress)

SecureScanPro is easy to install and easy to use, and does a great job of fixing most of the security areas that WordPress users need to address.

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

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite)

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 WordPress site for potential security weaknesses …

And then shows you how to fix these quickly …

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 very secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like making sure that your WP software, plugins and WordPress themes are kept up-to-date, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.

No matter what 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 securing your web site.

As a final reminder, below is the advice given by an expert on website security to all WordPress users after 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

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As you can see, website security is of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this article 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 seek help from a professional WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, please remember to subscribe to WPCompendium.org to be notified via email whenever we publish new tutorials on WordPress security and reviews of WordPress security plugins.

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