WordPress often is targeted by hackers.

In April 2013 a large-scale brute-force attack began hitting WordPress installations on virtually every web host in existence.

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

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 methods hackers use to try and break into WordPress sites. One of these is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. This is done using software programs and scripts that can guess hundreds of login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using easy-to-guess usernames and predictable passwords, your website can be easily hacked by a malicious software’s repeated 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/botnet)

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

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

Below is a screenshot 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 …

(ZeuS is a botnet that has been actively infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009. Image source: SecureList.com)

These were highly distributed and well organized botnet attacks on WordPress sites. 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 administration areas. The worldwide brute-force attacks continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress blogs being hacked every day.

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

(WordPress often is targeted by hackers)

Does This Mean We Should Stop Using WordPress?

No. In fact, there are many very good reasons why you should use WordPress if you are concerned at all about the security of your website.

To learn what makes WordPress a very secure platform for websites, read this article: Why WordPress Is A Secure Platform For Websites –

It’s important to note that, in the case of April 2013 mass brute-force attack described above, no specific WordPress vulnerability was being exploited (the same script was also targeting sites built using other web 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)

How To Protect Your WordPress Website From Brute Force Attacks – Ten Security Checks

You may think that the information in your website offers no value to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, all websites are an opportunity to profit or benefit at your expense.

If someone can find a web software weakness, that site can then be used to target other highly-valued sites.

Additional undesirable results of being hacked and your site security compromised include being blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links promoting things like viagra, porn, etc. inserted in your content and page title and descriptions, malicious redirects to phishing sites or other websites, drive-by downloads (adding malware on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasty things.

The truth is that software-driven bots are trying to hack into your website or blog at this very moment. Whether they can get in successfully or not, will depend on how difficult you have made it for hackers or botnets to keep trying until they either work out how 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 Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …

(Hackertarget – Website Security Scan Source: Hackertarget.com)

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

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

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

(Image source: Blog Defender)

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 can all be potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any vulnerabilities, especially where the owners haven’t updated their sites.

If your website is powered by WordPress and you are not proactive steps to harden your site, then it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these brute-force attacks are systematically targeting WordPress installations worldwide!

Typically, when a website or blog gets 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. Often, sites will become infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner even being aware that a breach has taken place.

To help avoid the heartache and frustration that comes with 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 being attacked by brute force botnet hacking attempts.

Note: A few of the recommended measures shown below require some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress and/or server files. If you have no web skills, or don’t want to mess around with file code, then ask your web host or a professional WordPress service provider for assistance.

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Security Measure #1 – Get In Touch With Your Host

Contact your web host and ask them what security systems have been put into place to help prevent your site from brute force attacks, and what is done to ensure that your server files and data are being regularly backed up.

It is important to make sure that your web host is backing up your sites and that, if disaster strikes, you can easily get back your files.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Regular WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Regularly Maintained

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

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A full WordPress maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP web site backed up and updated is vitally important for WordPress security. Screenshot image: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WP website frequently backed up and up-to-date. 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 maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your site is the second 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 many WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone & Protect Your WordPress Site With Backup Creator WP Plugin

Security Measure #3 – Do Not Use “Admin” As A Username

The brute force attack on WordPress sites was mostly attempting to compromise site admin panels by exploiting WordPress installations that used “admin” as their user name.

For website security purposes, avoid setting up sites 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.

We have created a detailed step-by-step tutorial created especially for non-technical WordPress admin users that shows you how to change your login username here: Changing Your WP Admin Username

Security Measure #4 – Use A Strong Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software continually tries to guess the right password and username characters that will give them access to your website.

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

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

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

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

We have created a tutorial for admin users on how to change your login password here: Changing WordPress Passwords

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

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.

(WordPress WP Config file)

If a hacker breaks into your WordPress website, they will typically 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 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 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, then just rename them.

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

Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities they can exploit in older versions of WordPress, including outdated versions of WP themes and plugins.

Make sure to keep all of your software files, themes, plugins, etc. up-to-date.

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

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

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

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

This allows anyone accessing your site’s admin area to see and edit your theme template files, or cause mayhem on your site.

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 – Secure The Site’s Uploads Directory

The WordPress “uploads” directory contains all the media files that get uploaded to your site.

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

(WordPress uploads directory)

If any files stored in his folder have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users, anyone can upload unauthorized file types to 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 an empty file called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to consult a professional if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Security Plugins

Some great WordPress security plugins are available that will address most common security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing unauthorized users from accessing vital areas of your site, protecting your site from malicious scripts, 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 potential issues that could lead to hackers accessing your files and causing damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – WP security software solution)

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

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

Blog Defender Security Solution For WordPress

(Blog Defender WordPress Security Solution)

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

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

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 WordPress plugins, such as Limit Login Attempts …

WordPress is a secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like ensuring that your WP installation, WP plugins and themes are kept updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.

Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of website security.

As one last reminder, below is the advice given by a security expert to all WordPress users following the worldwide 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

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As you can see, website security is very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, this information 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 professional WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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

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