Being the world’s most popular content management system makes WordPress a frequent target for hacking attempts.

In 2013 a large-scale brute-force attack hit WordPress installations across almost every web host in existence.

These attacks were caused by infected computer networks programmed to attack other 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)

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. To attempt this, hackers use scripts and software that can work through hundreds of login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using predictable login details, your website could be an easy target for hacking attempts.

This is called a “brute-force” attack.

Botnet Definition

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 or awareness.

Botnets are typically used to send mass spam emails.

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

These botnet attacks were highly distributed and well organized. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several hosting 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 worldwide attack continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked each day.

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

(WordPress is often the target of malicious attacks by hackers)

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

No. In fact, there are lots of great reasons why you should use WordPress if you are concerned about website security.

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

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

Mike Little, the co-founder of WordPress, said this about the botnet 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 Checks

You may think that the information in your website is of little value to hackers, but the reality is that every website is valuable to a malicious user.

If hackers can find a web software weakness, that website can then be employed as a “bot” in a planned cyberattack against more highly-valued web sites.

Additional undesirable consequences of having your website hacked include getting blacklisted by Google, having spammy links advertising things like casinos, porn, etc. inserted into your content and page title and descriptions, redirecting visitors to phishing sites or other websites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious software on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasty things.

The truth is that brute-force software bots are most likely looking for exploits and trying to hack into your blog right now. Whether they will achieve this or not, depends on how hard or easy you can make it for hackers and bots to keep persisting until they discover a way to get in, or decide to look for a more vulnerable target.

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

Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security check …

(Website Security Scan Screenshot source: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)

You will see that the test will display a number of results and information about your website …

(WP 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, then so can hackers.

(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)

The ability to see what 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 can be potentially valuable information to hackers, as this can inform them about exploitable security vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog is driven by WordPress and you are not taking steps to harden your site, then we can practically guarantee that, at some time in the near future, someone will attempt to hack your installation, because these brute-force attacks are systematically hitting WordPress sites all the world!

When a website is hacked, site owners can discover much to their dismay that they have been “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been interfered with or even that their content has been entirely wiped out. Typically, most compromised sites will become infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner even being aware that this has happened.

To help avoid the heartache (and significant loss of valuable business data) of having your site being hacked into, we have listed below ten essential and effective security checks that will help to protect your WordPress site from brute force attacks.

Note: Some of the recommended steps below need some technical skills to modify core WordPress and/or server files. If you have no web coding skills, or don’t want to mess around with code on your site, then ask your web host or search for a WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

***

Security Measure #1 – Get In Touch With Your Host

Get in touch with your host and ask them exactly what security systems are in place to help prevent your site from botnet attacks, and what they do to ensure that your server files and data get backed up.

Check that your host backs up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can quickly and easily get your files and data back.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Regular WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Or Blog Frequently Updated

Never rely just on your hosting service for site backups. Instead, learn how to maintain and manage your WordPress site or get this done for you and maintain a habit of performing a complete WordPress site maintenance routine on a frequent basis (e.g. daily, weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

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

A complete WP site maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how important maintaining your WP installation regularly backed up and up-to-date is. 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 a professional 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 you still have a pulse!

If you don’t want to back up your data manually, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone & Keep Your WP Website Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

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

The brute force botnet attack on WordPress is mostly attempting to compromise site administrator panels and gain access to the site by exploiting WP sites using “admin” as the account name.

For security reasons, avoid setting up 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.

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

Security Measure #4 – Choose Strong Passwords

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

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

Weak passwords, therefore, are really easy targets for hacking attacks. Make sure that you change your password to something that contains at least 8 or 9 characters long, and that includes upper and lowercase letters, combined with a few “special” characters (e.g. %, #, &, etc).

You can use a password management software tool like Roboform to help you generate difficult passwords …

(Roboform is a password software that lets you easily generate secure passwords)

For a simple tutorial created especially for non-technical admin users on how to change your admin password, go here: Changing WordPress Passwords

Security Measure #5 – Prevent Access To Your wp-config.php File

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

(wp-config.php)

If hackers break into your website, they will try to access your wp-config.php file, because this file contains your database details, 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 attacks and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, you must prevent your wp-config.php file from being accessed. 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 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 remove these files, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Upgrade Your WordPress CMS, Themes & Plugins To Their Latest Version

Hackers search for vulnerabilities they can exploit in previous versions of WordPress, including outdated versions of WP themes and plugins.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable The WordPress Theme Editor

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

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

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor using the WordPress dashboard menu)

This allows anyone accessing your site to view and change your WordPress theme files, or cause havoc on your site.

To prevent people from being able to access 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 Your Site’s Uploads Directory

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

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

(WordPress uploads directory)

If any directories in your website have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users, someone can upload unauthorized file types or compromise the security of your site.

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, adding 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 get professional help if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – WordPress Security Plugins

Some great WordPress security plugins are available that specifically address many common security issues WordPress site owners face, such as preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to vital areas of your site, protecting your files from malicious exploits, preventing injections of code into files, 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 issues that could lead to hackers accessing your website files and causing irreparable damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – total security software for WordPress)

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

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

Blog Defender WordPress Security Product Suite

(Blog Defender Security Suite For WordPress)

Blog Defender is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.

BlogDefender shows you where the security holes in your WordPress installation are …

And then shows you how to quickly fix these …

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

WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress installation, plugins and themes, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to malicious by hackers and bots.

Regardless of the type 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 websites.

As one last reminder of the importance of website security, below is the advice given by an expert on web security to all WordPress users after the worldwide brute-force attacks by botnets 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, WordPress security is very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the above 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 technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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

***

***