When you are the world’s leading CMS platform and the preferred online publishing platform used by millions of businesses and loved by thousands of web developers and web designers, it’s inevitable that at some point in time, WordPress will become an obvious target for attacks by hackers.

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

These attacks were caused by computer networks infected with malware and programmed to attack other computers (called “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)

One of the many ways hackers use to try and break into a WordPress site is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. This can be done with software programs and scripts that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login possibilities in minutes.

If you’re using weak user names and predictable passwords, your website can be an easy target for hackers.

This is called a “brute-force” login attack.

What Are Botnets

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 compromised and infected with malicious software, which are then controlled remotely as a group, typically without the computer owners’ knowledge.

Botnets are typically used to send mass spam emails from the infected computers of compromised user accounts.

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

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

These were well organized and highly distributed attacks on WordPress sites. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several webhosting companies in the initial attack, when the web was flooded with millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress users administration areas. The worldwide brute-force attacks then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked per day.

Coverage of this brute force botnet attack was widely reported in all the major webhosting companies, as well as the 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 …

(WordPress often comes under attack by hackers, due to its global popularity)

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 choose WordPress if you are concerned about the security of your website.

We explain what makes WordPress a very secure web platform in this article: Is WordPress Secure?

It’s important to understand that, in the case of the brute-force attack described above, no specific WordPress vulnerability was being exploited (the same script was also attacking 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 Checks

You may think that your website or blog is of no interest to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, all websites are an opportunity to benefit or profit at your expense.

If a hacker can discover a flaw in your security that allows them to gain access and control of your website, that blog can then be employed as part of a larger network of “bots” to target larger and more valuable websites.

Additional undesirable impacts of being hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by Google, having stealthy spam links advertising things like gambling, discounted fashion, etc. inserted in your content and meta data, malicious redirects to phishing sites, data exfiltration (stealing information or Personal Identifiable Information from your web applications), and lots of other nasty things.

The harsh reality is that software-driven bots are very likely trying to break into your website or blog as you are reading this at this very moment. Whether they will get into your site will depend on how hard you have made it for hackers to keep trying until they work out a way to get access, or are forced to give up and decide to look for a less protected target.

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

If you visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security check …

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

You will see that the scan will yield various results and information about your site …

(Hackertarget – WordPress security scan 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 about your WordPress site, then hackers can too.

(Screenshot: BlogDefender site)

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 on your server are all potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about potentially exploitable security weaknesses, especially where site owners haven’t updated their sites.

If your website runs on WordPress and you’re not proactive steps to toughen up your site, we can practically guarantee that, at some point, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these brute-force attacks are systematically targeting WordPress sites around the world!

When a site gets compromised, site owners will discover much to their dismay that they have been “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been altered or even that their content has been entirely wiped out. Often, sites will become infected with malicious software or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To help avoid the heartache and frustration (and potential financial loss) that comes with having your website or blog being hacked into, we have listed below ten simple, yet essential and effective security measures that will help to prevent your WordPress site from being brute force attacked.

Note: A few of the steps below need some technical skills to modify core WordPress or server files. If you have no web editing skills, or don’t want to mess around with file code, then ask your web host or search for a professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Hosting Service

Contact your hosting service provider and ask them exactly what precautions have been put in place to help prevent your site from brute-force attacks, and what they are doing to make sure that your site files are being backed up.

It is important to check that your hosting provider backs up your sites 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 Site Frequently Up-To-Date

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

A complete WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A complete WP site maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how important maintaining your WP website completely backed up and up-to-date is. WordPress site maintenance is not hard or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website or blog. If you don’t want to learn how to do WordPress site maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure this 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 many plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Back Up, Clone And Protect Your WordPress Websites With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

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

The mass brute force attack on WordPress is mostly an attempt to compromise site administrator panels by exploiting installations that used “admin” as their user name.

For reasons of website security, avoid installing a WordPress site with the username admin. This is the first area of potential vulnerability hackers will test. If your blog’s username is “admin”, change it immediately.

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial created especially for WordPress users that shows you how to change your WordPress username, go here: Changing Your WP Admin User Name

Security Measure #4 – Use A Strong Password

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

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

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

Roboform is a password program you can use to generate really secure passwords …

(Roboform is a password management software you can use to create different secure login passwords)

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

Security Measure #5 – Secure Your WP Config File

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

(WP Config file)

If a hacker breaks into your website, they will normally look for your wp-config.php file, because this file contains important information about your site’s database, security keys, etc. Getting access to this information would allow someone 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, you must prevent people getting to 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 Site Installation Files

Delete or rename your install.php, upgrade.php and readme.html files.

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

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

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

Ensure that all of your WordPress 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 administrators edit plugin and theme code from the dashboard area.

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

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

The WordPress theme editor allows anyone accessing your blog’s admin area to view and make changes to your WP theme files, and cause mayhem on your site.

If you want to prevent unauthorized 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 – Remove Access To Your Site’s Uploads Folder

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

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

(WordPress uploads directory)

If any directories in your website have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers, someone could upload unauthorized file types to 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, adding a blank index.php file (this is literally an empty file called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to get professional assistance if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Use WordPress Security Plugins

A number of WordPress security plugins are available that specifically address common security issues faced by WordPress site owners, such as preventing unauthorized users from accessing your site, protecting your website from malicious exploits, preventing injections of code into files, etc.

Many WordPress plugins address some but not all areas of WordPress security. One WordPress plugin that does a comprehensive job of scanning, fixing and preventing issues that could lead to hackers accessing your 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 great plugin you may want to look at using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender)

This product is a package 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 easily fix these …

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

WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting basic maintenance tasks like making sure that your WP software, WP plugins and WP themes are kept up-to-date, tightening file and data security 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, web security is something you simply cannot ignore.

As a final reminder of the importance of keeping your websites protected, below is the advice given by an expert on website security to all WordPress users after the worldwide 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, WordPress 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 consult a WordPress security specialist, or search for a WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

We also recommend subscribing to WPCompendium.org to be notified via email whenever we publish new tips on WordPress security and reviews of new WordPress security plugins.

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