US-CERT is aware of an ongoing campaign targeting the content management software WordPress, a free and open source blogging tool and web publishing platform based on PHP and MySQL.  All hosting providers offering WordPress for web content management are potentially targets. Hackers reportedly are utilizing over 90,000 servers to compromise websites’ administrator panels by exploiting hosts with “admin” as account name, and weak passwords which are being resolved through brute force attack methods.

CloudFlare, a web performance and security startup, has to block 60 million requests against its WordPress customers within one hour elapse time. The online requests reprise the WordPress scenario targeting administrative accounts from a botnet supported by more than 90,000 separate IP addresses.  A CloudFlare spokesman asserted that if hackers successfully control WordPress servers, potential damage and service disruption could exceed common distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack defenses. As a mitigating strategy, HostGator, a web hosting company used for WordPress, has recommended users log into their WordPress accounts and change them to more secure passwords.