WordPress Hackers Exploit Username 'Admin'

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.informationweek.com/security/attacks/wordpress-hackers-exploit-username-admin/240152864

By Mathew J. Schwartz
Information Week
April 15, 2013

Attention, WordPress users: If you have a WordPress username set to "admin," 
change it immediately.

That warning was issued Friday by WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, in the 
wake of reports that thousands of WordPress sites with an administrator 
username set to "admin" or "Admin" had been compromised via large-scale brute 
force attacks. Service provider HostGator, notably, reported Thursday that 
"this attack is well organized and ... very, very distributed; we have seen 
over 90,000 IP addresses involved in this attack."

According to survey website W3Techs, approximately 18% of all websites -- by 
some estimates, about 64 million sites -- run WordPress.

Successfully exploited sites get a backdoor installed that provides attackers 
with ongoing access to the WordPress site, regardless of whether a user 
subsequently changes the password guessed by attackers. Exploited sites are 
then used to scan for WordPress installations, and launch the same type of 
attack against those sites.

[...]


______________________________________________
Visit the InfoSec News Security Bookstore
Best Selling Security Books and More!
http://www.shopinfosecnews.org