WordPress often is targeted by hackers, due to its popularity.

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

These attacks were caused by botnets (computers infected with malware and 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)

One of the many ways hackers use to try and break into a WordPress site is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. This is achieved using scripts and tools that can work through hundreds of possible login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using weak usernames and passwords that are easy to guess, your site can be an easy target for hacking attempts.

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.org)

A “Botnet” is a network of computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious code or scripts, which are then controlled remotely as a group, often without the unsuspecting computer owners even being aware that this is going on.

Botnets are often used to blast mass spam emails.

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 compromising computer networks all around the globe since 2009 called “Zeus” …

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

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

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

(WordPress powers millions of websites worldwide, which makes it a frequent target for attempted hacking attacks)

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 at all about the security of your online presence.

To learn what makes WordPress a very secure web platform, see this article: Is WordPress Secure?

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

How To Protect Your WordPress Website From Brute Force Attacks – 10 Security Checks

You may think that your website or blog provides no value to hackers, but the reality is that to a hacker, all websites provide an opportunity to gain some advantage at your expense.

If hackers can break in and remotely control your website or blog, that blog can then be used as part of a larger network of “bots” to target other highly-valued web sites.

Additional undesirable impacts of having your site hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by Google, having stealthy spam links promoting things like online meds, cheap offers on brand names, etc. inserted in your content and meta data, malicious redirects to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious software on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasty things.

The truth is that hackers are trying to break into your site while you are reading this article at this very moment. Whether they will hack into your site or not, depends on how hard you will make things for hackers and bots to continue persisting until they can discover how to break in, or are forced to give up and go look for a more vulnerable target.

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

If you visit Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security scan …

(WP Security Check Source: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the check will display various results and information about your WordPress setup …

(WP security scan results. Image source: Hackertarget.com)

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

(Product image source: BlogDefender.com)

Being able to see what 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 in your site are all potentially valuable information to hackers, as this informs them about any potential security weaknesses, especially where the owners haven’t updated their software versions.

If your website is driven by WordPress and you are not taking appropriate steps to bolster the security of your site, then it’s practically guaranteed 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 around the world!

When a website or blog is compromised, blog owners can find themselves completely “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been altered or even that their content has been completely wiped out. Typically, sites will be infected with malicious software without the owner even being aware that a security breach has taken place.

To avoid the heartache and aggravation of having your website or blog being hacked into, we have listed below 10 simple, yet essential and effective security checks that will help to protect your WordPress site from brute force attacks.

Note: Some of the recommended steps below require some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress and/or server files. If you are not technical-minded, 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.

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

Contact your webhosting company and ask them exactly what precautions have been put into place to help prevent your site from brute force attacks, and what is done to make sure that your server files and data get regularly backed up.

Make sure that your webhosting provider regularly backs up your server files and that, if anything goes wrong, you can quickly and easily recover your files and data.

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

You should never rely on your hosting provider 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 complete site maintenance routine on a frequent basis (e.g. daily, weekly, monthly, etc …)

A full 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 themes, plugins and software components are up-to-date,
• etc …

A complete WordPress site maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important it is to maintain your WordPress website completely backed up and up-to-date. WordPress maintenance is not hard to do or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website. If you don’t want to learn how to do WordPress site maintenance yourself, pay someone to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your site is the next most important thing you must do after making sure that your heart is still beating!

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

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

the worldwide brute-force attack on WordPress is mostly an attempt to compromise website administrator panels by exploiting sites using “admin” as the user name.

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

We have created a tutorial on how to change your username here: How To Change Your Admin User Name In WordPress To A Different Username

Security Measure #4 – Make Sure Your Password Is Hard To Guess

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software persistently tries to guess the right password and username characters that will give the hacker entry to your site.

Unless you put some measure in 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 persist in attacking your site until it eventually breaks into your admin area.

Passwords that are easy to guess, therefore, become very easy targets for hackers. Make sure that you change your password to something that is at least 8 characters long, and that includes upper and lowercase letters, and add a few “special” characters (^%$#&@*).

Roboform is a password management program that lets you generate very secure passwords …

(Roboform is a password software that lets you create strong login passwords)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to change your WordPress password, go here: Changing Your WordPress Password

Security Measure #5 – Secure Your wp-config.php File

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

(wp-config.php)

If a hacker breaks into your site, they will normally look for 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 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 being attacked and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, 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 WordPress Installation Files

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

These files are not required after installation. If you don’t want to remove these files, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Keep Your WordPress Blog, Plugins And Themes Up-To-Date

Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities in earlier versions of WordPress that can be exploited, including outdated versions of WP plugins and themes.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your Theme Editor

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

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

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

The WordPress theme feature lets anyone accessing your site’s admin see and modify all of your WordPress theme files, or create mayhem on your site.

If you want 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 – Remove Access To The WordPress Uploads Directory

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

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

(WordPress uploads directory)

If any files stored in his folder have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users, anyone 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, uploading a blank index.php file (this is literally a blank file called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to seek professional help if you are unsure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Install WordPress Security Plugins

Several security plugins for WordPress are available that will address most security issues faced by WordPress website owners, such as preventing unauthorized users from accessing vital areas of your site, protecting your website from brute-force attacks, preventing injections of code into files, etc.

Many WordPress plugins address some but not all areas of WordPress security. One WordPress security plugin that seems to do a comprehensive job of scanning, fixing and preventing issues that could lead to hackers accessing your files and damaging your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – WP security software)

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 consider using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender

(Blog Defender)

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

BlogDefender scans you WordPress site for security weaknesses …

And lets you fix these quickly and easily …

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

WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress software, WordPress plugins and WordPress themes up-to-date, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.

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 an expert on website security to all WordPress users following the worldwide brute force attacks by botnets 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 of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the above article will help 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.

Also, do yourself a favor and subscribe to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications whenever we publish new tutorials on WordPress security and reviews of new WordPress security plugins and solutions.

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