Protection

Add two factor auth login protection to WordPress with YubiCo hardware YubiKeys and or 2FA Authenticator App

October 28, 2018 by Simon

Here is a quick guide to show you how to add two-factor auth login protection to WordPress with YubiCo hardware YubiKeys and or 2FA authenticator app

I have a number of guides on moving away from CPanel, Setting up VM’s on AWS, Vultr or Digital Ocean along with installing and managing WordPress from the command line.

Why Secure WordPress

WordPress CMS is a widely targeted CMS for hackers. View the official WordPress stats on WordPress Version/PHP and MySQL Version. View WordPress vulnerabilities here.

Read the Sucuri 2017 report on reported WordPress Hacks here (spoiler 34,371 infected websites in 2017).

Plugins exist to secure and scan WordPress. Read my blog post here on the now-retired Gravityaity Scan plugin and the awesome WordFence security plugin.

You (and hackers) can scan your site with https://wpscans.com/ or other open-source tools like wp-scan from OWASP ZAP. If you manage a WordPress site I’d recommend you install Kali Linux to scan your site.

Running a wp scan in Kali Linux is easy.

wpscan --url https://fearby.com --debug-output 2> ~/Desktop/wpscan.txt

The output from the Kali Linux wpscan tool

What are Hardware YubiCo YubiKeys

Read my guide here to see what YubiCo YubiKeys are and how to use them.

Get the Two-Factor Plugin for WordPress Plugin

Plugin: https://en-au.wordpress.org/plugins/two-factor/

Two-Factor

Plugin Page at WordPress.org

The source code for this plugin is available (nice): https://github.com/georgestephanis/two-factor. This plugin was updated 2 weeks ago (nice).

Downloading the Plugin

FYI: I do not allow downloading or updating of plugins in WordPress (via FTP), I prefer SSH manual downloading. FTP plugin installation and updating are not allowed on my site.

I got the latest download URL (e.g. https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/two-factor.zip) by copying the URL from the download button above.

I connected to my server via SSH and navigated to my WordPress plugin folder

cd /your-www-root/wp-content/plugins

I download the plugin.

[email protected]:/your-www-root/wp-content/plugins# wget https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/two-factor.zip
--2018-10-28 14:44:27--  https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/two-factor.zip
Resolving downloads.wordpress.org (downloads.wordpress.org)... 198.143.164.250
Connecting to downloads.wordpress.org (downloads.wordpress.org)|198.143.164.250|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 47882 (47K) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: 'two-factor.zip'

two-factor.zip                             100%[=======================================================================================>]  46.76K  --.-KB/s    in 0.001s

2018-10-28 14:44:27 (37.1 MB/s) - 'two-factor.zip' saved [47882/47882]

I extracted the plugin zip file

[email protected]:/your-www-root/wp-content/plugins# unzip two-factor.zip
Archive:  two-factor.zip
   creating: two-factor/
   creating: two-factor/assets/
  inflating: two-factor/assets/banner-1544x500.png
  inflating: two-factor/assets/banner-772x250.png
  inflating: two-factor/assets/icon-128x128.png
  inflating: two-factor/assets/icon-256x256.png
  inflating: two-factor/class.two-factor-core.php
   creating: two-factor/includes/
  inflating: two-factor/includes/function.login-header.php
   creating: two-factor/includes/Google/
  inflating: two-factor/includes/Google/u2f-api.js
   creating: two-factor/includes/Yubico/
  inflating: two-factor/includes/Yubico/U2F.php
   creating: two-factor/providers/
  inflating: two-factor/providers/class.two-factor-backup-codes.php
  inflating: two-factor/providers/class.two-factor-dummy.php
  inflating: two-factor/providers/class.two-factor-email.php
  inflating: two-factor/providers/class.two-factor-fido-u2f-admin-list-table.php
  inflating: two-factor/providers/class.two-factor-fido-u2f-admin.php
  inflating: two-factor/providers/class.two-factor-fido-u2f.php
  inflating: two-factor/providers/class.two-factor-provider.php
  inflating: two-factor/providers/class.two-factor-totp.php
   creating: two-factor/providers/css/
  inflating: two-factor/providers/css/fido-u2f-admin.css
   creating: two-factor/providers/js/
  inflating: two-factor/providers/js/fido-u2f-admin-inline-edit.js
  inflating: two-factor/providers/js/fido-u2f-admin.js
  inflating: two-factor/providers/js/fido-u2f-login.js
  inflating: two-factor/readme.md
  inflating: two-factor/readme.txt
  inflating: two-factor/two-factor.php
  inflating: two-factor/user-edit.css

Enable the Plugin

Don’t forget to update the plugin in WordPress.

Once the plugin is enabled I can setup Two-factor authentication

Edit your Users

To setup two-factor authentication open your WordPress users screen (/wp-admin/users.php).

Notice the Two-Factor column

Edit your desired user to enable two-factor login options

Scroll down to Two Factor Options header, you will see a QR code that you can scan with your two-factor authentication app (e.g Google Authenticator or YubiCo Authenticator).

Always generate and save backup codes in case you lose your YubiKeys or authenticator app.

You can enable authentication methods as required.

Add the code to your Authenticator app. I will add mine to my Yubico Authenticator app that requires the insertion of a physical YubiKey. I can read my YubiKey via NFC and use my mobile phone to generate one time passwords too. Read here to learn about YubiKey 2FA (touch) devices. I have secured my Ubuntu/Debian and macOSX with these keys,

TIP: Don’t forget to save the user after editing.

Add the YubiKey 2FA (touch) to WordPress logins.

While editing a user click Register New Key under Security Keys

Add your primary and backup YubiKey as required (I added both of mine).

Enable all desired 2FA options

Email (OFF)
Time based One-Time Password (Authenticator App) (ON)
FIDO Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) – YubiKey Insertion and touch (ON)
Backup Codes (ON)

TIP: Don’t forget to save the user after editing.

Users Table

Aim to set up every user who has access to your WordPress to use 2FA.

Mobile 2FA login

I tested logos via mobile and I was prompted to tab my YubiKey to my phone. Nice.

What happens at login?

When One Time Password is enabled as the primary authentication method I am prompted for a one-time password after entering my username and password. I then need to insert my YubiKey (or tap the YubiKey to my phone (via NFC)) to generate a one time password.

When FIDO is enabled I need to insert my YubiKey and press the button.

Conclusion

I can now secure my WordPress site with 2FA protections without expensive security plugins.

I hope this guide helps someone.

More

Setup two factor authenticator protection at login on Ubuntu or Debian

October 14, 2018 by Simon

This is a quick post that shows how I set up two-factor authenticator protection at login on Ubuntu or Debian

Aside

If you have not read my previous posts I have now moved my blog to the awesome UpCloud host (signup using this link to get $25 free UpCloud VM credit). I compared Digital Ocean, Vultr and UpCloud Disk IO here and UpCloud came out on top by a long way (read the blog post here). Here is my blog post on moving from Vultr to UpCloud.

Buy a domain name here

Now on with the post.

Backup

I ensured I had a backup of my server. This is easy to do on UpCloud. If something goes wrong I will rollback.

Why Setup 2FA on SSH connections

1) Firewalls or whitelists may not protect you from detection.

2) SSH authorisation bypass bugs may appear.

I’ve just relased libssh 0.8.4 and 0.7.6 to address CVE-2018-10933. This is an auth bypass in the server. Please update as soon as possible! https://t.co/Qhra2TXqzm

— Andreas Schneider (@cryptomilk) October 16, 2018

2FA authorisation is another lube of defence.

Yubico Yubi Key

Read my block post here to learn how to use the Yubico YubiKey NEO hardware-based two-factor authentication device to improve authentication and logins to OSX and software

Timezone

It is important that you set the same timezone as the server you are trying to secure two 2FA. I can run this command on Linux to set the timezone.

On Debian, I set the time using this guide.

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Check the time command

> timedatectl
> Local time: Tue 2019-06-25 16:45:20 UTC
> Universal time: Tue 2019-06-25 16:45:20 UTC
> RTC time: Wed 2019-06-26 02:37:44
> Time zone: Etc/UTC (UTC, +0000)
> Network time on: yes
> NTP synchronized: yes
> RTC in local TZ: no

sudo hwclock --show

I set the timezone

> sudo timedatectl set-timezone Australia/Sydney

I confirmed the timezone

> timedatectl
> Local time: Wed 2019-06-26 02:47:42 AEST
> Universal time: Tue 2019-06-25 16:47:42 UTC
> RTC time: Wed 2019-06-26 02:40:06
> Time zone: Australia/Sydney (AEST, +1000)
> Network time on: yes
> NTP synchronized: yes
> RTC in local TZ: no

I installed a npt time server

I followed this guide to install an NTP time server (failed at: ntpdate linuxconfig.ntp) and this guide to manually sync

I installed the Google Authenticator app

sudo apt install libpam-google-authenticator

sudo apt-get install libpam-google-authenticator

Configure Google Authenticator

Run google-authenticator and answer the following questions

Q1) Do you want authentication tokens to be time-based (y/n): Y

You will be presented with a token you can add to the Yubico Authenticator or other authenticator apps,

TIP: Write down any recovery codes displayed

Scan the code with your 2FA Authenticator app (e.g Google Authenticator, Yubico Authenticator or freeOTP from https://freeotp.github.io)

The 2FA code is now available for use in my YubiCo Authenticator app

Q2) Do you want me to update your “/root/.google_authenticator” file? (y/n): Y

Q3) Do you want to disallow multiple uses of the same authentication
token? This restricts you to one login about every 30s, but it increases
your chances to notice or even prevent man-in-the-middle attacks (y/n): Y

Q4) By default, a new token is generated every 30 seconds by the mobile app.
In order to compensate for possible time-skew between the client and the server,
we allow an extra token before and after the current time. This allows for a
time skew of up to 30 seconds between the authentication server and client. If you
experience problems with poor time synchronization, you can increase the window
from its default size of 3 permitted codes (one previous code, the current
code, the next code) to 17 permitted codes (the 8 previous codes, the current
code, and the 8 next codes). This will permit for a time skew of up to 4 minutes
between client and server.
Do you want to do so? (y/n) y: Y

Q5) If the computer that you are logging into isn’t hardened against brute-force login attempts, you can enable rate-limiting for the authentication module. By default, this limits attackers to no more than 3 login attempts every 30s.
Do you want to enable rate-limiting? (y/n): Y

Review Google Authenticator Config

sudo nano ~/.google_authenticator

You can change this if need be.

sudo nano ~/.google_authenticator

Edit SSH Configuration (Authentication)

sudo nano /etc/pam.d/sshd

Add the line below the line “@include common-auth”

auth required pam_google_authenticator.so

Comment out the following line (this is the most important step, this forces 2FA)

#@include common-auth

Edit SSH Configuration (Challenge Response Authentication)

Edit the ssh config file.

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Search For

ChallengeResponseAuthentication

Set this to

yes

Ensure the following line exists

UsePAM yes

Add the following line

AuthenticationMethods publickey,password publickey,keyboard-interactive

Edit Common Auth

sudo nano /etc/pam.d/common-auth

Add the following line before the line that says “auth [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so nullok_secure”

auth required pam_google_authenticator.so

Restart the SSH service and test the codes in a new terminal before rebooting.

TIP: Do not exit the working connected session and you may need it to fix issues.

Restart the SSH service a tets it

/etc/init.d/ssh restart
[ ok ] Restarting ssh (via systemctl): ssh.service.

If you have failed to set it up authenticator codes will fail to work.

Failed attempts

Further authentication required
Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Verification code:
Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Verification code:
Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Verification code:

When it is configured OK (at login SSH connection) I was prompted for further information

Further Information required
Using keyboard-interactive authentication
Verification Code: ######
[email protected]#

I am now prompted at login to insert a 2FA token (after inserting my YubiKey)

Turn on 2FA on other sites

Check out https://www.turnon2fa.com and tutorials here.

I hope this guide helps someone.

Please consider using my referral code and get $25 UpCloud VM credit if you need to create a server online.

https://www.upcloud.com/register/?promo=D84793

Ask a question or recommend an article

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Revision History

V1.4 June 2019: Works on Debian 9.9

V1.3 turnon2fa.com

V1.2 ssh auth bypass

v1.1 Authenticator apps

v1.0 Initial Post

Privacy, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) information for WordPress bloggers.

May 25, 2018 by Simon

This is a short post with General Privacy, Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) information for WordPress bloggers.

Note: This is not legal advice, just late minute information on current opinions and facts around GDPR.

fyi: Read my guide on the awesome UpCloud VM hosts (get $25 free credit by signing up here).

Facebook, Google, Whatsapp and Instagram are facing lawsuits for failing to comply with GDPR, Europe’s sweeping new data protection law.

Facebook, Google, Whatsapp and Instagram are facing lawsuits for failing to comply with GDPR, Europe’s sweeping new data protection law https://t.co/o7FyX0fspI

— CNN (@CNN) May 25, 2018

It is GPRD Compliance Eve and there are loads of last-minute GDPR activity.

Official European Commission resources on GRDP

What are your new #dataprotection rights? What is the right to be forgotten?
Our official website provides you with more information → https://t.co/h0rqJaHqJt #GDPR pic.twitter.com/VLhWzOUzR6

— European Commission ?? (@EU_Commission) May 25, 2018

Some US News sites are blocking Europeans

GDPR: US news sites blocked to EU users over data protection rules https://t.co/G0g5U0eqM1

— BBC Technology (@BBCTech) May 25, 2018

Legal Teams are up late

shout out to the legal teams pushing their GDPR-driven privacy policy updates out at the last minute pic.twitter.com/afSAT2egyf

— Patrick Donahue (@prdonahue) May 25, 2018

First Lawsuits are filed

Under #GDPR, Schrems files legal cases worth €7bn against Facebook https://t.co/eQtbptLl09

— Irish Times Business (@IrishTimesBiz) May 25, 2018

Should you panic?

No.

If you want a good summary for GDPR for bloggers – does it apply to you and how to comply then read this.

Also, Wikipedia has a good article.

wpbeginner.com has an Ultimate Guide to WordPress and GDPR Compliance – Everything You Need to Know

Read wpbeginners.com’s summary of what GDPR is?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union (EU) law taking effect on May 25, 2018. The goal of GDPR is to give EU citizens control over their personal data and change the data privacy approach of organizations across the world.

Are there fines?

Basically after May 25th, 2018, businesses that are not in compliance with GDPR’s requirement can face large fines up to 4% of a company’s annual global revenue OR €20 million (whichever is greater). This is enough reason to cause wide-spread panic among businesses around the world.

First, there will be warnings, then reprimands then Suspension then Fines and more.

Does GDPR apply to my WordPress site?

The answer is YES. It applies to every business, large and small, around the world (not just in the European Union).

If your website has visitors from European Union countries, then this law applies to you.

But don’t panic, this isn’t the end of the world.

While GDPR has the potential to escalate to those high level of fines, it will start with a warning, then a reprimand, then a suspension of data processing, and if you continue to violate the law, then the large fines will hit.

But warning are issued before fines are given.

What can you do?

Check your web server hosts GDPR Compliance (my blog host is Vultr, their GDPR compliance summary on their blog, Vultr data processing guide). Read my guide on setting up a server on Vultr here.
Know your mail servers GDPR status – I use GSuite (e.g Google GDPR Reference Center, Whitepaper and Resource Center).
Ubuntu GDPR Auditing and compliance information (e.g Purging old data, use strong passwords, be accountable, perform audits (with Lynis, Qualsys and Zap), running virus scanners, use secure protocols and security (like TLS 1.3)).
Securing and protecting users private data (e.g using SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your mail server).
Review the Google AdSense Compiance Information (If you are using AdSense )
Read WordPress Core GDPR v4.9.6 changes
Search each of your WordPress plugins and see what you need to be aware of in relation to GDPR.
Review Mailchimp GDPR data.
Cookie Consent (I use GDPR Cookie Consent Plugin).
etc.

But the takeaway is, don’t create a website (then be lazy) and abuse users private data or be lazy with security.

My blog hosts (Vultr) GDPR information

I instaled a GDPR Cookie Consent WordPress Plugin

I used the WP-CLI plugin install GDPR Cookie plugin for the command line. View the developer site here.

# Visited the WP Plugin page and got the URL for the latest plugin version
# https://wordpress.org/plugins/cookie-law-info/
# Connect to my server via SSH
cd /www-root
cd wp-content/plugins/
wget https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/cookie-law-info.1.5.5.zip
unzip cookie-law-info.1.5.5.zip
unzip -r cookie-law-info.1.5.5.zip
rm -R cookie-law-info.1.5.5.zip

I then activated the plugin and configured it.

Cookie bot also has a great page on GDRP here.

I edited the following Privacy/GDRP placeholder files.

cd /www-root
# Made a reject cookies placeholder
sudo nano rejectcookies.html

# Made a privacy placeholder
sudo nano privacy.html

I should have skipped creating a privacy.htm page as WordPress v4.9.6 has a Privacy Page Generator. Nice

Goto tour sites Dashboard, click Settings then Privacy. Create a new page, fill in the blanks and publish it.

I read MailChimp GDPR Advice as I had a few lists with private data

General Data Protection Regulation FAQs: http://eepurl.com/dufEZb
About MailChimp, the EU/Swiss Privacy Shield, and the GDPR: http://eepurl.com/c567FL

More to come. Let’s get back to those GDPR emails

Trying to delete #GDPR emails like… pic.twitter.com/eZpqSS2OVF

— H3roes&Vi1lains (@H3roesVi1lains) May 25, 2018

I hope this guide helps someone.

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Revision History

v1.1 Cookie Bot GDPR Link

v1.0 Initial post

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