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

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

These attacks were caused by botnets (infected computer networks programmed to attack other computers with security vulnerabilities).

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 ways hackers try to break into WordPress sites. One of these is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. This is achieved using scripts and tools that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login permutations in minutes.

If you’re not using strong usernames or unguessable passwords, your site could be easily hacked by repeated attempts to guess your site’s login details.

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)

”Botnets” are networks of private computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious software, which are then controlled remotely as a group, often without the unsuspecting computer owners’ knowledge.

Botnets are typically used to blast 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 …

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

These ongoing botnet attacks were highly distributed and well organized. 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 users administration areas took place. The large-scale attack then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked per day.

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

(Being the world’s most popular CMS makes WordPress an obvious target for hacker attacks)

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 the security of your online business.

To learn why WordPress is a secure web platform, see this article: Why WordPress Is A Secure Platform For Websites –

It’s important to note that, in the case of April 2013 large-scale brute-force botnet attack described above, was no specific vulnerability in WordPress being exploited (the same script was also attacking sites built using applications like Joomla).

Mike Little, one of the co-founders of WordPress, made the following 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)

Protecting Your WordPress Site From Brute-Force Attacks – Ten Security Measures

Every blog with a vulnerability can can provide an opportunity to hackers. If you think that the information in your website or blog offers little to no value to hackers, think again. Large, medium and small business web sites, personal blogs, government web sites … even web sites owned by web security and anti-hacking experts can and have been targeted.

If someone can find a way to take over your website, the site can then be used as part of a larger network of “bots” to target more highly-valued web sites.

Additional undesirable consequences of having your website hacked and your site security compromised include being blacklisted by Google, having stealthy spam links advertising things like online meds, cheap offers on brand names, etc. in your content and page title and descriptions, malicious redirects to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malware on your visitors’ computers), and lots of other nasties.

The harsh reality is that malicious bots are most likely trying to hack into your site as you are reading this. Whether they can break in or not, will depend on how hard or easy you can make it for hackers or bots to continue trying until they discover a way to get access, or are forced to give up and decide to look for a more vulnerable target.

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

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

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

You will see that the test returns various results and information about your website setup …

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

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

(Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)

The ability 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 be potentially useful information to hackers, as this informs them about potential security vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your website is driven by WordPress and you’re not proactive steps to toughen up your site, we can practically guarantee that, at some time in the near future, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these brute-force attacks are systematically targeting WordPress installations all the world!

Typically, whenever a site gets broken into, webmasters will find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been modified or even that their content has been completely wiped out. Typically, most compromised sites will be infected with malicious software or viruses without the owner even being aware that this has taken place.

To avoid the heartache (and significant financial loss) of discovering that your website or blog has been hacked into, we have listed below 10 simple, yet essential and effective security measures that will help to prevent your WordPress site from brute-force attacks.

Note: A few of the measures below require some technical understanding of how 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 technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

***

Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Web Host

Get in touch with your webhosting company and ask them exactly what security measures they have put in place to protect your site from botnet attacks, and what is done to ensure that your server files get regularly backed up.

Make sure that your webhosting provider backs up your sites and that, if anything happens, you can quickly and easily recover your files.

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

Never rely just on your web host for your site backups. Instead, learn how to maintain your WordPress site or pay someone to get this done for you and maintain a habit of performing a full 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 removed,
• All WP 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 WP website or blog fully backed up and up-to-date is vitally important for WordPress security. Source: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WP installation frequently backed up and updated. WordPress 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 WordPress site maintenance yourself, pay someone 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 your heart is still beating!

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

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

The brute force botnet attack on WordPress is mostly an attempt to compromise website admin panels by exploiting installations using “admin” as their user name.

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

For a detailed tutorial created especially for WordPress users on how to change your username, go here: How To Change Your WP Username From Admin To A Different Username

Security Measure #4 – Use Strong Passwords

A “brute force” attack occurs when a malicious script continually hits a username and password field with different character strings trying to guess the right combination that will give them entry to your website.

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

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

If you have trouble coming up with strong passwords or feel reluctant to set up different passwords for all your online logins, then use a password management software tool like Roboform …

(You can use a password management software tool like Roboform to generate strong passwords)

For a detailed tutorial that shows you how to change your WordPress password, go here: What To Do If You Need To Reset WordPress Passwords

Security Measure #5 – Deny Access To Your WP Config File

The wp-config.php file allows WordPress to communicate with the database to store and retrieve data and is used to define advanced options for WordPress.

(WP Config 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 WordPress 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.

To protect your WordPress site from attacks and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, you must 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 WP Installation Files

Rename or delete the install.php, upgrade.php and readme.html files from your server.

These files can be removed after installation. If you don’t want to delete these files, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Keep Your WordPress Files, Themes & Plugins Up-To-Date

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your WordPress Theme Editor

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

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

(The WordPress theme editor can be accessed using the WP dashboard menu)

The WordPress theme editor feature allows anyone accessing your blog to view and change your WordPress theme template files, or cause havoc on your site.

To prevent people from being able to access your 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 Folder

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

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

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

If any directories in your website have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users, this can become a serious threat to the security of your website.

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 blank file named “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 WordPress Security Plugins

There are several security plugins for WordPress available that will address most security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing hackers from accessing your site, protecting your website from malicious software, preventing injections of code into files, 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 website files and causing irreparable damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – security plugin for WordPress)

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

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

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender)

This product is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.

BlogDefender scans you WordPress installation for security weaknesses …

And lets you fix these quickly and easily …

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

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

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

As a final reminder, below is the advice given by a 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, website security is very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this article has given you 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 professional WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

We also recommend subscribing to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications via email whenever we publish new articles and tutorials on WordPress security and reviews of WordPress security plugins.

***

***