We talk a lot about the importance of using strong passwords, but sometimes it it hard to see how important it really is, or what can happen if we do not use a strong one. Most people only realize this after they have been compromised for the first time.
Lately we have been seeing many WordPress sites being attacked and hacked through the use of brute force. The administrator leaves the default “admin” user name and chooses a simple password, and never changes it.
Why is it bad that the password is easy and never changed?
There is a technique known as brute-force attack. Like the name implies, access is gained to your environment through brute force. Often conducted by bots, these attacks will run through a compiled list of common passwords and their permutations (i.e., password, Pa$$w0rd, p@ssw0rd, etc..). Yes, the attackers know that you substitute ‘A’ for an ‘@’ and ‘S’ for a ‘$’. Using this method the attackers are gaining access to your wp-admin, this then allows them to serve spam via your posts, deface your home page like we recently saw with ServerPro, and inject any one of the other types of malware roaming the interwebs.
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