WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system making it a target for attempted attacks by hackers.

In early 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to mass brute force attacks.

These attacks were caused by botnets (infected computer networks programmed to attack other vulnerable sites).

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’s administration login username and password. To achieve this, hackers use software programs that can work through hundreds of possible login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using obvious user names and predictable passwords, your site could be easily hacked by persistent attempts to work out your site’s login details.

This is called a “brute force” login 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 computers that have been infected with malicious code or scripts, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, typically without the unsuspecting computer owners’ knowledge or awareness.

Botnets are often used to blast out mass spam emails from computers of compromised user accounts.

Below is a screenshot taken from an internet security monitoring site showing the locations of the command centers of a botnet that has been actively infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009 called “Zeus” …

(The Zeus botnet has been actively infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009. Screenshot: SecureList.com)

These were well organized and highly distributed attacks. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by a number of hosting companies in the initial attack alone, when the web was flooded with millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress site admin areas. The worldwide brute-force attacks continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress sites being hacked every day.

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

(WordPress often comes under attack 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 good reasons why you should choose WordPress if you are concerned at all 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 mass brute force botnet attack described above, there was actually no WordPress vulnerability 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, 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)

Preventing Your WordPress Website From Brute Force Attacks – Ten Security Points

You may think that your website or blog is of no interest to hackers, but the reality is that every website is valuable to a malicious user.

If hackers can exploit a security flaw in your system that lets them control your website or blog, the website can then be employed as a “bot” in a planned cyber-attack against larger and more highly-valued websites.

Additional undesirable results of being hacked include getting blacklisted by Google, having stealthy spam links promoting things like casinos, porn, etc. in your content and page title and descriptions, redirecting visitors to phishing sites or other websites, data exfiltration (stealing information or Personal Identifiable Information from your web applications), and lots of other nasties.

The harsh reality is that software-driven bots are very likely searching for security weaknesses and trying to break into your web site right now. Whether they will be successful or not, depends on how hard you will make things for hackers to continue trying until they either discover a way to break in, or are forced to give up and go look for an easier target.

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

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

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

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

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

It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you are able to access all of this information about your 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 on your site, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories on your server are all valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any potential security vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog runs on WordPress and you are not proactive steps to toughen up your site, then we can practically guarantee that, at some point, someone will attempt to hack your installation, because these attacks are systematically targeting WordPress installations all the world!

When a site gets compromised, blog owners can discover much to their dismay that they have been “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their content has been modified or even entirely wiped out. Typically, most sites will become infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner even being aware that a security breach has taken place.

To help avoid the heartache (and potential financial loss) of discovering that your website has been hacked into, below are ten simple, yet essential and effective security checks that will help to prevent your WordPress site from brute force botnet attacks.

Note: Some of the steps below need some technical skills to modify core WordPress 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 a professional WordPress service provider for help.

***

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

Contact your hosting provider and ask them exactly what systems have been put in place to protect your site from brute-force attacks, and what is done to ensure that your files and data are regularly being backed up.

Check that your webhosting provider regularly backs up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily get back your files and data.

Security Measure #2 – Back Up Your WordPress Data And Files And Keep Your Site Frequently Updated

Never rely on your web host for your site backups. Instead, learn how to manage your WordPress site or get this service done for you and maintain a habit of performing a full WordPress site maintenance routine on a frequent basis (e.g. 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 complete WP site maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP installation regularly backed up and updated is vitally important for WordPress security. Image source: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important maintaining your WP site completely 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 or blog. If you do not want to learn how to do WP site maintenance yourself, pay a professional to do it but make sure it gets done. Backing up your website is the next 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. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Duplicate & Keep Your WP Web Site Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

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

The brute-force attack on WordPress is mostly attempting to compromise site administrator panels by exploiting installations using “admin” as the username.

For security reasons, avoid setting up sites with the username admin. This is the first area of potential vulnerability hackers will test. If your site’s user name is admin, you will should change it immediately.

For a simple tutorial created especially for admin users that shows you how to change your username, go here: How To Change Your WordPress Admin Username

Security Measure #4 – Choose A Strong Password

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

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

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

You can use a password software tool like Roboform to create hard-to-guess passwords …

(Roboform is a password program that lets you easily create secure passwords)

We have created a simple tutorial on how to change your password here: What To Do If You Need To Change WordPress Passwords

Security Measure #5 – Protect Your WP Config File

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

(wp-config.php file)

If hackers break into your WordPress site, they will normally look for your wp-config.php file, because this is the file that contains your database information, 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, prevent people accessing 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 – Rename Or Delete Unnecessary 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 remove these files, just rename them.

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

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

Ensure that all of your WordPress software 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 the site administrator to edit theme and plugin code from the dashboard area.

You can access your WordPress Theme Editor by selecting Appearance > Editor in your dashboard menu …

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

The WordPress theme editor feature allows anyone accessing your blog to view and edit your WordPress theme files, and create mayhem on your site.

If you want to prevent people from being able to access the WordPress Theme editor, you will need to disable it. This can be done by editing your wp-config.php file.

Security Measure #9 – Protect Your WordPress Uploads Folder

The WordPress “uploads” directory stores all the media that gets uploaded to your website.

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

(WordPress uploads directory)

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

Protecting your directories will prevent online users from accessing 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 get professional help if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Security Plugins

There are several WordPress security plugins available that specifically address most security issues faced by WordPress site owners, such as preventing unauthorized users from accessing 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 plugin that seems to do a comprehensive job of scanning, fixing and preventing issues that could lead to hackers accessing your files and causing irreparable damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – complete security software solution for WordPress)

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

Another plugin you may want to consider using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender Security Plugin For WordPress Websites & Blogs

(Blog Defender Security Plugin For WordPress Web Sites)

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

BlogDefender shows you where potential security holes in your website are …

And lets you quickly fix these …

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

WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress installation, WordPress plugins and WordPress themes updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.

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

As one last reminder of the importance of website security, below is the advice given by a web security expert to all WordPress users following the global 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, WordPress security is of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the above article has given you the initial guidelines and help you need to keep your WordPress site protected from brute force attacks. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please seek help from a professional WordPress security specialist, or search for a WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

We also recommend subscribing to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications when we publish new information on WordPress security and reviews of WordPress security plugins and solutions.

***

***