WordPress Security Leveled up.

by Rajenvisionon Posted on

WordPress Security Leveled: –

  • The enormous popularity of WordPress and the open-source nature of the WordPress ecosystem have made it an intense target for hackers.
  • Security has long been a major issue with WordPress.
  • That may have changed recently when the business arm of WordPress recently acquired a security company that can help internalize security and reduce hacking incidents.

Third-Party Plugin and Theme Developer Vulnerabilities:

  • Common vulnerabilities like Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and WordPress API vulnerabilities occur due to careless coding practices of third-party developers in the WordPress ecosystem.
  • The two most common points of failure are when software coders are unable to sanitize what is entered or loaded into a WordPress installation.
  • The other coding flaw is a failure to properly verify the privilege level of the person interacting with the WordPress site, leading to a privilege escalation exploit, where an attacker with the lowest level of access can acquire the privileges. higher privilege levels.
  • Each vulnerability that is discovered is entered into a carefully selected database called the WPScan Vulnerability Database.
  • That database serves as a resource for the WordPress security community, serving as an alert system for newly discovered exploits.

WordPress security company acquired by WordPress:

  • Jetpack, a division of WordPress’ business arm Automattic, announced that it is acquiring the popular security suite company WPScan WordPress.
  • WPScan provides resources that enable WordPress and the WordPress security ecosystem to quickly address security issues.
  • Jetpack is a WordPress toolkit that also includes a security component.
  • WordPress security is an important area for WordPress because it is what competitors cite as a weakness in WordPress.
  • WPScan is a vulnerability database.

WPScan also provides:

  • An API to access the database
  • WPScan Security Scanner, a command-line interface (CLI) scanner
  • A WordPress security plugin.
  • WPScan database.
  • WPScan is first and foremost an openly available database that logs WordPress vulnerabilities and makes the information available through an API.
  • Information on WordPress vulnerabilities is hand-picked by WPScan and its contributors.
  • WPScan is also an official CVE Numbering Authority (CNA), which means that you can assign the numbers that are referenced to vulnerabilities in the security community.
  • The database is accessible to individuals, companies, and security researchers.
  • Depending on how many API calls are made to the database, the information is available for free through an API and also at relatively modest prices for more access to the database and custom pricing for business-level requirements.

WordPress WPScan Security Scanner:

WPScan also provides WPScan WordPress Security Scanner, which is a command-line interface scanner that is free for non-commercial use to scan a website for vulnerabilities recorded in the WPScan database.

Additional sample things that the free WPScan WordPress security scanner checks:

  • The version of WordPress installed and the associated vulnerabilities.
  • What add-ons are installed and the associated vulnerabilities?
  • What themes are installed and the associated vulnerabilities?
  • Username enumeration.
  • Users with weak passwords through password brute force
  • Publicly accessible and supported wp-config.php files
  • Database dumps that can be made publicly accessible
  • If plugins expose error logs “

WordPress WPScan Plugin:

  • WPScan offers a free plugin that scans a website to determine if the WordPress installation itself and/or installed themes and plugins have vulnerabilities.
  • The plugin uses the WPScan database API to search for vulnerabilities.
  • The daily scan is said to fall within the free API usage tier.

The plugin also looks for common weaknesses that could make a website vulnerable:

  • Check for debug.log files
  • Check the backup files wp-config.php
  • Check if XML-RPC is enabled
  • Check the code repository files
  • Check if default secret keys are used
  • Check exported database files
  • Weak passwords
  • HTTPS enabled

The main feature of the WPScan plugin is to provide a quick alert if a plugin on the site, a theme or WordPress itself contains a vulnerability and if a patch is issued.

Jetpack’s stated reason for acquiring WPScan is to open up the data even further and continue it as a resource for the entire WordPress ecosystem.

Jetpack’s goal for this acquisition is to make malware data and APIs more open source.

Make sure WPScan remains a high-quality security resource for the entire WordPress community. To that end, we will explore ways to make the API completely free for non-commercial sites.

WPScan will continue to function independently in the short term and may be integrated into Jetpack Scan in the future.

Current WPScan customers will not be impacted by the short-term acquisition and will receive the same high-quality WordPress security service they have come to expect.

WordPress security will improve.