How to Protect Your Website from WordPress Brute Force Attacks?
No website is safe and the bitter truth is that your website might be under a brute force attack. The most common WordPress attack is a brute force attack. When hackers do this type of attack then this they try to use the correct combination of username and password so that they can gain access to your website. After getting access to your site, they can perform various malicious activities. Once the hacker enters your website, they have the capacity to create any type of trouble such as using the resources of the site to store files, data stealing, website defacing, launching attacks on other websites, sending spam emails from WordPress sites, spam links injection, etc.
Once Google finds that your website gets hacked then messages like deceptive site ahead warning or this site may be hacked warning start appearing in the search results. In this situation, Google has the right to block your site and also the site can be suspended by the hosting provider. The website can be protected from brute force attacks if you will install the best WordPress Security Plugin. A login protection feature is present in this software that helps to block hackers whenever they try to apply brute force attacks on your login page.
What is a WordPress Brute Force Attack?
A site owner has to enter the username and password in the login page which is there is every WordPress website. It will help you to access the wp-admin dashboard. The default login page is present on every WordPress website. This feature is known to hackers so for them finding out the login page of any WordPress website is easy. Most website owners use easily remembered usernames and passwords. For example – admin as username and 12345678 as password. A huge database of commonly used usernames and passwords is present with the hackers. WordPress websites are found by the program bots in which you have to open the login pages and launch brute force attacks on them.
Various combinations of common usernames and passwords are used by the bots to gain access to the website. The names such as author or founder name and team member name are displayed on the website that can be picked up by the attacker. In one minute, they can make thousands of login attempts. This is the reason it is known as a brute force attack. This kind of attack can still damage your site even when the attacker is not able to guess the correct credentials. The web server can go in shock and cause a slowdown of working due to rapid attempts within minutes.
How to Protect your Website from Brute Force Attacks?
There are 8 security measures that help to prevent brute force attacks:
1. Usernames and Passwords Should Be Strong –
Two elements are present in the login credentials that is username and password. First, the usernames used while login in should be unique and strong as well. Easy usernames can be guessed by hackers within minutes and this makes their job easier to crack the password. This is the reason you should avoid using common usernames. The weak usernames impact the security of the website. The username should so unique that it cannot even be present on the website. Second, WordPress always encourages to use of a strong password while creating a new user account. If you will create a weak password, then WordPress will warn you about the same but even then you want to use a weak password so you can select the option ‘Confirm use of weak password’ and go ahead. Strong passwords are difficult to remember but because of this, you should never compromise on your information security.
2. Prevent Discovery of Username –
The hackers will scan your website during brute force attacks for searching the names that help them to break your website. The following measures that help to prevent hackers from finding the usernames:
- Change display name: The author name is present in blog posts of most websites that are displayed at the starting and end of the article but if this name is similar to the author name then it is easy for the hackers to pick up and use it to log in your website.
- Block WordPress rest API from displaying name: Another way that hackers can use to find the usernames is on the WordPress website through rest API. In 2016, WordPress was introduced to benefit the users but for hackers, it is considered as a weak spot in the function. API help to find all the information present on the website including the username.
3. Limited Login Attempts –
The hackers deploy bot use various combinations of common usernames and passwords to gain access to your website. We have already discussed that thousands of attempts can be made by the bots within a minute that might easily break your password. But if you limit the login attempts then brute force attacks can be prevented like allow only 3 login attempts. The login page will be blocked if the wrong credentials are used in all three attempts. You can unblock the login page by yourself if you genuinely forgot the credentials by solving the CAPTCHA present on the plugin page. This will help to prevent the brute force attack and stop the hackers because they cannot solve CAPTCHA codes.
4. Default Login Page URL should be changed –
The format of the default login URL is known by the hackers and they can launch brute force attacks on your website by using the login page. But if a new page URL is used for login then it is harder for the hackers to find the login page. A single website is rarely targeted by hackers. They mainly try to attack multiple websites so that if they cannot find the default login URL then they can move on to their next target. Several plugins help to change your URL such as Easy Hide Login, WPS Hide Login, etc.
5. Implement Two-Factor Authentication –
When login into your Gmail and Facebook then you need to follow two steps i.e., first, entering the username, and second, entering the password. A unique code will be sent to your smartphone which you need to enter for accessing the account. The identity of the actual user is ensured by using a two-step method while logging in to the account. This two-step method can be used to implement on your WordPress website after installing a two-factor authentication plugin.
6. Implementation of HTTP Authentication –
One more layer can be added to your WordPress login page to protect your website by using HTTP authentication. The hackers can be blocked by using the HTTP authentication technique and they will not be able to access the login page. A sign-in box appears after opening the login page of a website with HTTP authentication installed. The HTTP credential and login credential are not the same. By using a plugin, you can implement HTTP authentication on your website.
7. Use Firewall Protection –
A firewall helps you to identify the hackers. The good traffic can be filtered out from the bad by using WordPress firewall filters. The access of good traffic can be allowed by the WordPress firewall filters on the website and block the bad traffic. The firewall consists of a database of malicious IP addresses that helps to identify hackers and bots.
8. Implement Geo-blocking –
The method that helps to ban all IP addresses originating from the particular country is known as Geo-blocking. A large number of attacks will be shown by the data because hackers are present throughout the world. You need to block countries to decrease the chances of brute force attacks.
