When you are the most popular content management system in the world and the online publishing platform of choice for 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 a prime target for attacks by hackers.

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

These attacks were caused by computer networks infected with viruses and programmed to attack other vulnerable installations, also commonly known as “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)

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

If you’re using predictable login details, your site could 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)

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

Botnets are typically used to send 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 compromising computer networks all around the world since 2009 …

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

These ongoing botnet attacks are highly distributed and well organized. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by a number of webhosting companies just in the initial attack, when millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress site admin areas occurred. The brute force attacks then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked per day.

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

(WordPress is the world’s most used CMS which makes it a target for malicious attempts by hackers)

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

No. In fact, there are many great reasons why you should continue using WordPress if you are concerned at all about the security of your web presence.

We explain why WordPress is a secure web platform in this article: Concerned About WordPress Security? What Every Business Owner Needs To Know About WordPress

It’s important to note that, in the case of the mass brute force botnet attack described above, there was no WordPress vulnerability being exploited (the same script was also attacking sites built using other platforms like Joomla).

Mike Little, one of the co-founders of WordPress, 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 Prevent Your WordPress Website From Being Brute-Force Attacked – 10 Security Checks

Every web site with a security vulnerability provides some value opportunity to hackers. An unsecured web site presents hackers with a valuable resource for DDoS attacks, spreading malware and engaging in information theft.

If a malicious user can discover a way to gain any form of control of your website, the website can then be employed as a “bot” to attack more valued sites.

Additional undesirable effects of having your website hacked include being blacklisted by search engines, having stealthy spam links promoting things like gambling, discounted fashion, etc. inserted in your content and page title and descriptions, redirecting visitors to phishing sites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious software on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasty things.

The harsh reality is that malicious bots are trying to hack into your website or blog as you are reading this article. Whether they can break into your site or not, will depend on how hard you will make it for hackers and botnets to continue persisting until they can discover how to get access, or are forced to give up and go look for a less protected target.

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

Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security scan …

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

You will see that the scan returns a number of results and information about your website setup …

(Hackertarget – WP security check results. Screenshot image: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you can access all of this information about your WordPress website, then so can hackers.

(Screenshot: Blog Defender)

The ability to see which 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 are all valuable information to hackers, as these can inform them about any exploitable security vulnerabilities, especially in older versions.

If your website runs on WordPress and you’re not taking steps to bullet-proof your site, it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point, someone will attempt to hack your site, because these brute force attacks are systematically targeting WordPress installations around the world!

When a website is hacked, webmasters will find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been interfered with or even that their content has been entirely wiped out. Typically, sites will be infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner even being aware that this has taken place.

To help avoid the heartache (and significant loss of valuable business data) that comes with having your site being hacked into, below are 10 essential and effective security measures that will help to prevent your WordPress site from being attacked by brute force hackers.

Note: A few of the measures below need some technical skills to modify core WordPress 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 service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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Security Measure #1 – Get In Touch With Your Host

Get in touch with your webhosting company and ask them exactly what systems are in place to help prevent your site from brute force attacks, and what they do to make sure that your files and data get regularly backed up.

It’s important to make sure that your web host backs up your sites and that, if anything should happen, you can easily recover your site.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Full WordPress Backups And Keep Your Site Regularly Maintained

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

A complete WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

• All unnecessary files and data are removed,
• All WP 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 site maintenance routine looks like this …

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

Again, we cannot stress enough how vitally important it is to maintain your WordPress web site fully backed up and updated. WP site maintenance is not hard to do or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website. If you do not want to learn how to do WP site 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 must 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 plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone And Keep Your WordPress Websites Protected With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

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

the worldwide brute force botnet attack on WordPress is mostly an attempt to compromise site administrator panels and gain access to sites by exploiting WP installations with “admin” as the account name.

For reasons of website security, avoid installing a WordPress site with the username admin. This is the first area hackers will test. If your site’s username is “admin”, then make sure you change this immediately.

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

Security Measure #4 – Your 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 give them access 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 keep attacking your site until it eventually breaks into your admin area.

Passwords that are easy to guess, therefore, are very easy targets for hackers. Make sure that you change your password combination to a string that is at least eight or nine characters long, with upper and lowercase letters, combined with a few “special” characters (e.g. ^, $, &, etc).

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

(You can use a password tool like Roboform to create unbreakable passwords)

We have created a detailed tutorial for admin users that shows you how to change your WordPress password here: Changing Passwords

Security Measure #5 – Prevent Access To Your wp-config.php File

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

(wp-config.php file)

If hackers break into your site, they will try to access your wp-config.php file, because this is the file that contains your WordPress database details, 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, you must prevent people viewing 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 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 delete these files, then just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Update Your WordPress Software, Themes And Plugins To Their Latest Version

Hackers look for vulnerabilities in previous versions of WordPress that can be exploited, including out-of-date versions of WP themes and plugins.

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

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your Theme Editor

WordPress installations come with a built-in editor that lets the site administrator edit plugin and theme code from the dashboard area.

In WordPress, you can access your WordPress Theme Editor by selecting Appearance > Editor from your dashboard menu …

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

This means that anyone logging into your blog can view and modify your WP theme files, and cause mayhem on your site.

To prevent unauthorized 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 – Prevent Access To Your Site’s Uploads Directory

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

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

(WordPress uploads directory)

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

Several WordPress security plugins are available that will address most common security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing hackers from accessing vital areas of your site, protecting your site from malicious exploits, preventing unauthorized file uploads, 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 website files and causing irreparable damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – security software 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 plugin you may want to look at using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender WordPress Security Suite

(Blog Defender Security Suite For WordPress Blogs)

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

BlogDefender scans you web site for security vulnerabilities …

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 very secure platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like ensuring that your WordPress installation, plugins and themes are kept up-to-date, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to malicious by hackers and bots.

No matter what 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 one last reminder, below is the advice given by an expert on web security to all WordPress users following the global 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, WordPress security is very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the above 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 professional WordPress security specialist, or search for a WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

We also recommend subscribing to WPCompendium.org to be notified via email whenever we publish new articles and tutorials on WordPress security and tutorials about WordPress security plugins and solutions.

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