WordPress Security: Common Vulnerabilities and Ways to Fix Them

Quick Summary: WordPress security is crucial to protect your website and data. But vulnerabilities are the roadblock to it. This article will provide a deeper understanding of how vulnerabilities affect the security of your WordPress site and provide solutions to them. Keep reading to get the information to secure your website and data.

WordPress is the most popular website builder today, with most websites on the web built on this platform. Indeed, as per W3Techs, 62.7% of all websites that use a CMS are built on WordPress. It shows the immense popularity of this website builder.

However, the popularity of this platform also makes it more susceptible to cyberattacks. There are different types of WordPress security risks that result in data breaches or security compromises. Vulnerabilities are the primary reason for these security issues.

They are the hidden loopholes that attackers can exploit to breach a website’s security. Identifying and fixing these loopholes is paramount to securing WordPress websites. But how do these vulnerabilities occur and how can you fix them? We will explore these questions here.

Stay tuned to this article to understand WordPress vulnerabilities and how they impact its security. You will also find solutions to these vulnerabilities to improve the security of your website. Let’s dive deeper for a better understanding.

Discover Vulnerabilities in Minutes and Secure Your Website at the Earliest Try Free Now

Most Common WordPress Vulnerabilities and Solutions

WordPress security issues arise from different types of vulnerabilities. Mostly, poor security practices are behind these vulnerabilities like using plugins from untrusted sources. You can enhance the security of your website by identifying and resolving these hidden weak spots. The following are the major reasons for WordPress vulnerabilities.

Plugins, Themes, and Core Vulnerabilities

In most cases, WordPress security issues arise due to vulnerabilities in the core, themes, and plugins. However, you must note that only a small fraction of vulnerabilities are found in the core. Only 13 vulnerabilities were reported in the core in the previous year, as per WPScan report.

The major threat comes from themes and plugins. In fact, plugins have the lion’s share of vulnerabilities, which is found at around 95% of total vulnerabilities. Mainly, these vulnerabilities arise from failing to update the core files, plugins, and themes.

Besides common WordPress vulnerabilities, security risks also arise from using malicious plugins. There have been many cases when a plugin posed as legitimate but found to be a malware by researchers.

Solution:

• Updating WordPress regularly will help you avoid loopholes that could result in security breaches.
• Themes and plugins, as we have mentioned, are significant reasons for security issues. Hence, you must always keep them up to date.
• Don’t install unnecessary plugins, as it will affect both performance and security. Avoiding such plugins will reduce the potential vulnerabilities.
• Are there plugins installed that you no longer need? Deactivate or remove plugins that you don’t need.

Weak Password Vulnerabilities

Another WordPress vulnerability that can cause security issues is weak passwords. These passwords can be easily cracked by attackers using methods like brute force. Besides, it could also lead to credential theft. After obtaining the password, an attacker can access your website.

Suppose there is an account with administrative privileges and the password is weak. In this situation, an attacker can access the account by brute-forcing the password. As a result, the attacker will have complete control over the server.

After this, the security of your website will be compromised, and sensitive data could go into the hands of bad actors. You can prevent such issues by using best practices for passwords.

Solution:

• Ensure that all users choose strong passwords for their accounts. You can define a password policy which is the rules that must be satisfied by every password. There are many plugins to ensure strong passwords.
• A brute force attack works by entering all the permutations and combinations of login credentials. You can minimize the risk by limiting the number of login attempts.
• Implement two-factor authentication to help users leverage two layers of protection. After this, users will get a secret code through SMS or Email to login.

Poor Access Management

One of the major WordPress security risks is improper management of user access. If you don’t properly manage permissions for different users of your WordPress website, it could lead to severe consequences. So, if high level access is given by mistake or without much consideration to a user who might be get hacked, you will face various security challenges.

Proper access management will enable you to allow users who are worth it to access critical data. As a result, it won’t be accidentally or purposely accessed by a user with lower access rights.

Solution:

• You must adopt a robust IAM (Identify and Access Management) framework to protect your sensitive data.
• Check the list of all WordPress accounts regularly and remove those that you no longer need.
• Find out those users who don’t need higher access rights and revoke the unnecessary access rights.
• Shift your organization on the “least privilege principle” or zero-trust architecture, never trust any user and always verify their identity.

XML-RPC Protocol Vulnerability

Initially, WordPress used XML-RPC protocol to establish communication between the CMS and third-party programs. However, in 2015, it started to support REST API. After this, third-party communication is handled by this protocol. However, XML-RPC is still supported in WordPress. Plus, it is enabled by default. It causes vulnerabilities in WordPress.

An attacker can exploit XML-RPC to launch brute force and DDoS attacks. XML-RPC will enable the attacker to check multiple username-password combinations in a single command. Plus, it will enable the attacker to circumvent security measures that prevent brute force.

In the second type of attack, your website can be taken offline with DDoS. An attacker can exploit the pingback feature in XML-RPC, which will overburden your site with excessive requests.

Solution:

• The best way to avoid WordPress security risks arising from XML-RPC is to disable it if you don’t need it.
• You can configure restrictions for it if you plan to use it to avoid potential security risks.
• Strong passwords and access management can also help to mitigate the risks from this type of vulnerability.

Scan Every Corner for WordPress CMS and Protect Your Website Let’s Scan Now

What are the Potential Risks of WordPress Vulnerability?

Since WordPress is used by most website owners that use a CMS, it is on top of the hit list of attackers. Hence, there are different types of security risks that WordPress users are prone to. The following are the most common security risks faced by users of this CMS.

Cross-Site Scripting

XSS or Cross-site Scripting is a common security risk which can result in unauthorized access and compromised data. Plugins are most susceptible to this risk. It enables an attacker to trick users into loading web pages with malicious scripts.

Attackers can dupe users with links to malicious websites and steal their sensitive information. It can be done with insecure plugins and themes. You can avoid such risk by applying respective updates, input validation, encryption, etc.

File Inclusion

PHP is the underlying technology for WordPress. However, it could also be a source of vulnerability in WordPress. It can happen when there is vulnerable code that is used to load external files. The code is vulnerable when the input provided by users is not validated and sanitized.

For example, it could lead to a remote file inclusion attack in which an attacker can attempt to load a malicious file. If there is a successful file inclusion attack, it will allow the attacker to gain access to sensitive data or files like wp-config.php.

Denial-of-Service

Vulnerabilities in WordPress can make your website susceptible to Denial-of-Service or DoS attacks. In this case, an attacker will overwhelm your server with excessive requests, rendering it unresponsive. It could also block administrator permissions, putting your site at risk.

These types of attacks are usually carried out using bots. So, the origin of the traffic is hidden. The attacker can also carry out DDoS attacks by using multiple machines.

SQL Injection

Another WordPress site vulnerability could arise from MySQL, which is the native query language for this CMS. Attackers can leverage SQL injection to get sensitive data, manipulate data in database, or destroy data.

Usually, attackers take advantage of web forms to inject SQL queries. If the input is not validated and sanitized, these queries are executed. Consequently, data can be added, deleted, modified, or disclosed.

Brute Force

Brute-force is the most used technique for unauthorized logins. In this technique, the attacker uses various tools to automate login requests with various combinations of usernames and passwords. The attacker tries billions of username-password combinations to log in to the target site.

Mostly, these attacks happen to WordPress users because, in many cases, the default admin page is easy to find. In many cases, website owners don’t change the admin page and it’s usually found by typing website domain and adding “/wp-admin” at the end. After this, the attacker can try brute-forcing.

Why is WordPress Security Important?

WordPress security is indispensable to maintain app’s integrity and validity. Check out key points that cover importance of WordPress below:

Vulnerability Exploitation

WordPress sites are generally targeted for vulnerabilities in the core software, plugins, or themes. Such exploitation can cause unauthorized access, data breaches, or malware infections. That makes WordPress security a need of an hour.

Data Protection

Many WordPress websites store confidential details which include personal details, financial data, and login credentials. A security breach can lead to the theft or exposure of this data which can cause unbearable consequences for organizations.

Website Integrity

Attackers might deface websites or insert malicious data, which notably damages the website’s goodwill and undermines trust of users. Thus, ensuring security helps maintain the integrity and professionalism of the site.

Operational Disruption

Security breaches can cause significant downtime, affecting website availability and functionality. This can result in a huge loss of business and user frustration. That’s why ensuring robust security of WordPress prevents operational disruptions and financial losses.

Regulatory Compliance

For websites handling personal or financial data, security is generally a regulatory requirement. Ensuring compliance helps avoid legal issues and penalties.

Best Practices to Keep Your WordPress Website Secure

You need a comprehensive approach to protect your website and keep WordPress vulnerabilities at bay. This approach should include continuous threat monitoring and efforts to mitigate the risks. This can be done by following the right security practices and conducting regular vulnerability assessments. Let’s know more about them in detail below.

• Trusted Plugins and Themes: Use plugins or themes from trusted sources only. Using themes or plugins that don’t come from trusted sources may pose a security challenge. It could contain malware.
• Use HTTPS Encryption: Enable HTTPS encryption by implementing SSL certificate. It ensures secure communication between the server and the web browsers. The data exchanged between the server and browser is encrypted and then transmitted.
• Implement WAF: Filter out all incoming traffic by implementing the web application firewall (WAF). It will prevent malicious traffic and secure your website from potential cyberattacks.
• Backup: Maintain regular backup for your data. In case of a cybersecurity incident like a ransomware attack, you can easily retrieve your data.

Protect Your Data from Potential Security Risks Before It is Late Beef Up Security

How Can ZeroThreat Help Mitigate WordPress Security Risks?

Taking active measures to protect your WordPress website is essential for security. You need a reliable WordPress scanner that can uncover security flaws to help you safeguard your website. There comes the role of ZeroThreat, which is the best vulnerability scanner that can identify WordPress security flaws most precisely.

You can use ZeroThreat to scan vulnerabilities in themes, plugins, and core files. It can thoroughly scan your WordPress website and discover hidden vulnerabilities to help you defend your website from various risks like XSS, CSRF, brute force, and more. It performs simulated attacks on the CMS to find the vulnerabilities that could compromise security.

Give it a shot and check out the amazing benefits.