WordPress Login – Brute Force Attack

Recently, there was a worldwide, highly-distributed WordPress attack. This attack was known for using forged or spoofed IP addresses. During the attack, we actively blocked the most common attacking IP addresses across our server farm. If this type of attack happens again, we will again take appropriate measures.

Measures You Can Take to Prevent Similar Attacks

The following steps can be used to secure (by password protection) wp-login.php for all WordPress sites in your cPanel account. This will help deter this type of attack.

How to Password Protect the wp-login.php File

There are two (2) steps in accomplishing this. First you need to define a password in the .wpadmin file, and then you activate the security in the .htaccess file.

Step 1: Create the Password File

Create a file named .wpadmin and place it in your home directory, where visitors can’t access it. (Please note there is a period preceding the wpadmin in that file name.) The following example is for cPanel. Plesk would require placing the file in /var/www/vhosts or /var/www/vhosts/domain.

EXAMPLE: /home/username/.wpadmin
(where “username” is the cPanel username for the account.)

Put the username and encrypted password inside the .wpadmin file, using the format username:encryptedpassword

EXAMPLE: john:n5MfEoHOIQkKg
(where “john” is a username of your choice, and the password shown is encrypted.)

Option A: Generate Password File & Uploading Via File Manager

One way to do this is to generate the file using the website linked below, and then upload it to your site via FTP or File Manager. In the directions below, we will use File Manager, but you could use FTP instead, for those of you familiar with FTP.

1. Visit: http://www.htaccesstools.com/htpasswd-generator/
2. Use the form to create the username and password.
3. Login to cPanel in another window or tab.
4. Click on File Manager.
5. Select Home Directory.
6. Check Show Hidden Files (dotfiles) if not already checked.
7. Click on the Go button.
8. Look for a .wpadmin file.
   • If one exists, right click on it and select Code Edit to open the editor. Click on the Edit button to edit the file.
   • If one does not exist, click on New File at the top of the page, and specify the name as .wpadmin (with the dot at the front) and click on the Create New File button.
9. Paste the code provided from the website in step 2.
10. Click on the Save Changes button when complete.
11. You can Close the file when finished.

Option B: Creating the Password File via SSH / Command Line

To create the encrypted password you will need to use a utility such as the command-line program htpasswd. More detailed technical information about htpasswd can be found at http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/programs/htpasswd.html.

An example would be to do this:

You would then be prompted to enter the password you wish to use for the username “john” in order to access the wp-login page. You can then log into the wp-admin interface as you normally would. There are many other online tools that can be used to convert standard passwords to encrypted for this purpose.

Step 2: Update the .htaccess File

All domains under the home directory will share the common .wpadmin file. (The command listed in Option B above creates the /home/username/.wpadmin file due to the -c.)

The last step is to place the following code in the /home/username/.htaccess file:

Note: replace “username” above with your cPanel username.