WordPress powers millions of sites worldwide, making it an easy target for attempted hacking attacks.

In April 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to a worldwide brute force attack.

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

How To Protect Your WordPress Site From A Brute-Force Attack

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 a WordPress site. One of these is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. This can be done using software programs and scripts that can work through hundreds of login permutations in minutes.

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

This is called a “brute-force” attack.

Botnets – What Are They?

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)

A “Botnet” is a network of computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious code or software, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, often without the computer owners’ knowledge.

Botnets are typically used to blast 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 ZeuS – a botnet that has been actively infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009 …

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

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

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

(Being the world’s most used CMS makes WordPress a target for attempted attacks by hackers)

Does This Mean WordPress Is Not Secure And We Should Stop Using It?

No. In fact, there are lots of very good reasons why you should choose WordPress if you are concerned about the security of your online business.

To learn what makes WordPress a very secure web platform, see this article: Are Open Source Platforms Like WordPress Secure?

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

Protecting Your WordPress Site From Being Brute-Force Attacked – Ten Security Checks

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

If someone can find a way to break in and gain control of your blog, the website or blog can then be used to target more valued web sites.

Additional undesirable results of having your site hacked and your site security compromised include being blacklisted by search engines, having stealthy spam links advertising things like gambling, porn, etc. inserted in your content and page title and descriptions, malicious redirects to phishing sites, data exfiltration (stealing information or Personal Identifiable Information from your web applications), and many other nasties.

The harsh reality is that hackers are most likely trying to hack into your blog at this very moment. Whether they will get in depends on how hard or easy you will make it for them to continue persisting until they either find a way to get access, or are forced to give up and decide to 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 scan …

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

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

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

It should be obvious after using this scanning tool that if you can freely access all of this information, hackers can too.

(Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)

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 are all valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about exploitable holes or weaknesses, especially in older versions.

If your site or blog is powered by WordPress and you’re not preventive steps to bolster the security of your site, then we can practically guarantee that, at some point, someone will attempt to hack your site, because these brute force attacks are systematically targeting WordPress sites all the world!

Whenever a website is compromised, website owners will find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been altered or even that their content has been completely wiped out. Often, compromised sites will be infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner’s knowledge or awareness.

To avoid the heartache and aggravation (and potential financial loss) of having your web site being hacked into, below are 10 essential and effective security checks that will help to protect your WordPress site from being brute-force attacked.

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

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Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Host

Get in touch with your host and ask them what precautions have been put into place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what is done to make sure that your server files are regularly being backed up.

It’s important to check that your webhosting company regularly backs up your server files and that, if anything goes wrong, you can easily get your site back.

Security Measure #2 – Back Up Your WordPress Data And Files And Keep Your Site Regularly Maintained

You should never rely just on your host 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 religiously performing a complete site maintenance routine frequently (e.g. daily, weekly, monthly, etc …)

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

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

A complete WP maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP web site fully backed up and up-to-date is vitally important for WordPress security. Image: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important maintaining your WP website or blog fully backed up and updated is. WordPress maintenance is not hard 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 maintenance yourself, pay someone to do it but make sure it gets done. Backing up your website is the next most important thing you should do after making sure that you are still breathing!

If you don’t want to back up your site manually, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Duplicate & Keep Your WP Site Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

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

The large scale brute-force botnet attack on WordPress sites was mostly an attempt to compromise site admin panels and gain access to the site by exploiting WP sites using “admin” as their username.

For reasons of website security, avoid setting up sites with the username “admin”. This is the first thing hackers will test. If your site’s username is “admin”, change this immediately.

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial for WP admin users that shows you how to change your username, go here: How To Change Your Admin Username In WordPress

Security Measure #4 – Change Your Password

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

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

Weak passwords, therefore, become really easy targets for attacks. Make sure that you change your password combination to a string containing at least 8 or 9 characters long, with upper and lowercase letters, combined with a few “special” characters (^%$#&@*).

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

(You can use a password program like Roboform to generate strong login passwords)

We have created a simple tutorial created especially for WP admin users on how to change your admin password here: What To Do If You Need To Change Login Passwords In WordPress

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.php)

If a hacker breaks into your site, they will typically try to access 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.

In order to protect your WordPress site from attacks and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, 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 WP Installation Files

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

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

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

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

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your Theme Editor

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

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

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

The WordPress theme editor feature allows anyone accessing your blog’s admin to view and change your WordPress theme templates, and create havoc on your site.

To prevent unauthorized people from accessing the 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 WordPress Uploads Folder

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

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

(WordPress uploads folder)

If any directories in your website have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers, anyone can upload unauthorized file types to your site.

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, uploading a blank index.php file (this is literally an empty file named “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 – Security Plugins

There are a number of great WordPress security plugins available that specifically address most common security issues faced by WordPress site owners, such as preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to vital areas of your site, protecting your files from malicious exploits, preventing injections of code into files, etc.

Most 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 damaging your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – security plugin for WordPress)

SecureScanPro is easy to install and easy to use, and does a great job of addressing most of the security areas that WordPress users need to address.

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

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin)

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 potential security weaknesses in your web site are …

And lets you quickly and easily fix these …

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

WordPress is a very secure platform, but neglecting basic 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, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of web security.

As a final reminder of the importance of website security, below is the advice given by an expert on website security to all WordPress users following the global brute force attacks by botnets 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 very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the information in this article has shown you what to do 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 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 articles and tutorials on WordPress security and tutorials about WordPress security plugins.

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