Powering millions of websites around the world makes WordPress a target for hackers.

In early 2013 a mass brute force attack began hitting WordPress installations across virtually every WP hosting server in existence.

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

What Are 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 admin’s login username and password. This is done with scripts and tools that can work through hundreds of possible login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using obvious usernames and passwords, your site can be an easy target for hackers.

This is called a “brute force” login 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/botnet)

”Botnets” are networks 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 often used to send out mass spam emails from the infected 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 a botnet that has been actively compromising computer networks all around the globe since 2009 called “Zeus” …

(The Zeus botnet has been actively compromising computer networks all around the world since 2009. Source: SecureList.com)

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

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

(WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS which makes it an obvious target for malicious attempts by hackers)

Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Use WordPress Anymore?

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

We explain what makes WordPress a very secure platform for websites in this article: Is WordPress A Secure Website Platform?

It’s important to understand that, in the case of the large-scale 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, one of the co-founders of WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, made this comment 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 Being Brute Force Attacked – Ten Security Checks

Every site with a security vulnerability can can provide an opportunity to hackers. An unsecured web site offers malicious users with a valuable resource for distributed attacks, spreading malware and engaging in information theft.

If a hacker can hack into and gain remote access and control of your website, your website can then be used as part of a larger network of “bots” to target other valued web sites.

Additional undesirable consequences of being hacked include getting blacklisted by Google, having stealthy spam links promoting things like viagra, cheap offers on brand names, etc. inserted into your content, redirecting visitors to phishing sites, data exfiltration (stealing information or Personal Identifiable Information from your web applications), and many other nasty things.

The harsh reality is that brute-force software bots are most likely looking for security exploits and trying to hack into your blog right now. Whether they can successfully get in will depend on how hard you will make it for hackers to continue trying until they can work out a way to get access, or decide to look for a less protected target.

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

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

(Hackertarget – WordPress Security Check Screenshot: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Hackertarget – WP security check results. Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Product image: 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 on your server can all be valuable information to hackers, as this can inform them about exploitable holes or weaknesses, especially where site owners haven’t updated their files.

If your website runs on WordPress and you are not taking steps to bullet-proof your site, it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point, someone will attempt to hack your website, because these attacks are systematically hitting WordPress installations around the world!

Whenever a website or blog is compromised, site owners 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. Typically, most sites will be infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner even being aware that a security breach has occurred.

To help avoid the heartache of having your website or blog being hacked into, we have listed below 10 simple, yet essential and effective security measures that will help to prevent your WordPress site from being brute-force attacked.

Note: Some of the measures below require some technical skills to modify core WordPress and server files. If you have no web editing skills, or don’t want to mess around with code on your site, then ask your web host or a professional WordPress technical provider for help.

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Security Measure #1 – Get In Touch With Your Webhosting Service Provider

Contact your hosting provider and ask them what measures they have put in place to help prevent your site from brute force attacks, and what is done to ensure that your server files and data get backed up.

It is important to check that your hosting service backs up your server files and that, if anything should happen, you can quickly and easily recover your site.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Full WordPress Backups And Keep Your Site Frequently Updated

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

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A complete WordPress site maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WordPress website or blog 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 WP installation frequently backed up and updated is. WP 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 WordPress site maintenance yourself, pay someone to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your site is the next most important thing you should do after making sure that your heart is still beating!

If you don’t want to back up your files manually, there are many WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Duplicate & Protect Your WordPress Web Sites With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

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

The large scale brute force attack on WordPress is mostly attempting to compromise site admin panels and gain access to the site by exploiting sites that used “admin” as the account name.

For reasons of website security, never set up sites with the username “admin”. This is the first area hackers will test. If your site’s user name is admin, then make sure you change this immediately.

We have created a detailed tutorial that shows you how to change your login username here: How To Change Your WordPress Admin Username To Another User Name

Security Measure #4 – Use Strong Passwords

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software continually and persistently hits a username and password field with different strings of characters in an attempt to guess the right combination that will unlock your site.

Unless you put some measure in place to stop the brute force attack (see further below for a couple of effective ways to do this), the “bot” will just persist in attacking your site until it eventually “cracks” the code.

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

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

(You can use a password tool like Roboform to create very secure passwords)

For a tutorial for WordPress admin users on how to change your password, go here: Changing Passwords

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

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 hackers break into your website, they will search for your 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.

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 WordPress 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 And Themes

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your WordPress Theme Editor

WordPress comes with a built-in editor feature that allows site administrators to edit theme and plugin code inside the dashboard area.

You can access your WordPress Theme Editor by selecting Appearance > Editor from the main menu …

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

The WordPress theme editor lets anyone accessing your blog see and modify all of your theme templates, and create havoc on your site.

To prevent unauthorized 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 – Prevent Access To The WordPress Uploads Folder

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

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

(WordPress has an uploads directory where media content is stored)

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

Protecting your directories will prevent unauthorized people from accessing your ‘uploads’ folder and other important directories. This can be done using plugins, setting file permissions, uploading 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 use a professional if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Install Security Plugins

There are a number of security plugins for WordPress 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 site from malicious exploits, 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 site files and causing damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – WP total security software solution)

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

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

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender Security Solution For WordPress)

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

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

And then shows you how to easily fix these …

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

WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress core files, WP plugins and themes updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to attacks by hackers and bots.

No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, website security is something you simply cannot ignore.

As one last reminder of the importance of website security, below is the advice given by a security expert to all WordPress users after 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

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As you can see, website security is of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the above 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 consult a WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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

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