Today we will discuss How to Prevent Common WordPress Attacks. Cybersecurity is a perennially hot topic, more so today than ever. As a WordPress site owner, it is extremely important to be big on security and do everything you can to protect your site from any type of attack now or in the future.
WordPress is inherently a highly-secure platform. The security team consists of many experts who work hard to address security concerns with each new update. However, no site is completely secure, which means there are still vulnerabilities you’re liable to experience.
In this context, we’ll consider five of the most common WordPress security threats and how to prevent them using best practices. Let’s go!
How we picked the most common WordPress attacks
For the purposes of this article, we will base our recommendations on the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) rankings. Since 2001, OWASP has been an integral part of promoting safety and integrity online. They are a non-profit foundation that works hard to improve software integrity on the Internet.
The project set a clear goal of comprehensive data collection and achieved this by leveraging the OWASP Azure cloud infrastructure to collect, analyze and store contributed data. In essence, volunteers can contribute data by sending a CSV/Excel file via email or by uploading it to a contribution folder.
OWASP uses this data collection and analysis system to compile a list of the top ten security risks sites encounter on a regular basis. With approximately 275 local chapters worldwide, the project has earned a reputation for helping organizations develop and maintain trusted software applications.
Five Basic Common WordPress Attacks (And How to Prevent Them)
If the security of your WordPress site is a priority, this list will help you spot attacks and learn how to prevent them. Let’s start!
1. Injection error
One of the most prominent vulnerabilities you may encounter on your WordPress site is a code injection error. You often experience an injection when your site allows users to enter data through a weak entry point, such as a contact or login form.
When the data entered is not ‘authenticated’, you may be susceptible to this attack. SQL injections are the most common but other types such as NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injections can also be a problem.
Injection flaws often lead to denial of access, data loss and corruption, disclosure to unauthorized parties, and even complete host takeover. The best approach to prevent injection is to separate commands from your site’s queries. WordPress developers can use specific SQL controls such as LIMIT to prevent this. Site owners can take advantage of security plugins (such as Malcare) to keep their websites secure.
2. Broken Authentication
Broken authentication occurs when there is a weakness in the identity and session control implementation. The strength of a site’s authentication controls is highly dependent on session management.
If it’s not implemented correctly, hackers can compromise your keys, passwords, and session tokens. In most cases, you may be a victim of identity theft, social security fraud, and disclosure of highly sensitive information.
If you want to reduce the risk of broken authentication, you should implement multi-factor authentication on your site. What’s more, look into replacing the default credentials you’re given when creating a new WordPress site. Weak password checks shouldn’t be an option either, especially for admin users.
3. Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks
Similar to injection attacks, XSS attacks occur at the site’s entry point – such as user input fields. These attacks occur when automated applications detect some form of XSS on your site It can be used to hide untrusted data on a new page that doesn’t have proper validation or an existing one via user-input data.
Cross-site scripting allows an attacker to execute code remotely within the victim’s browser. Thus, they can either steal their credentials or deliver malware. You can prevent an XSS attack using two techniques.
The first technique is to ensure that network requests generated from one page do not access data from another page. Likewise, your website must be able to distinguish between regular input and malicious code. Frameworks such as React JS are immune to this attack by design.
Usually, preventing XSS attacks starts with good development practices. For a site owner, choosing a powerful, secure theme is essential
4. Exposure to Sensitive Data
Exposure to sensitive data can be considered a data breach. When sensitive data is transferred or stored on your site, you must put adequate measures in place to ensure that hackers cannot get their hands on it. Otherwise, if exposed, attackers can steal passwords, credit card details, session tokens, and more.
In addition to putting your own sensitive data at risk, your site’s visitors can also become victims. This is why you must do everything you can to keep the data on your site secure.
To avoid such attacks, it is important that you never store data in plain text or receive data sent over a non-HTTPS connection. For site owners, a proper SSL certificate can help you encrypt the most sensitive data across the network.
5. XML External Entity (XXE)
Such attacks are caused by outdated or poorly managed Extensible Markup Language (XML) processors. These evaluate external entity references within the XML document. In the process, an attacker can exploit a misconfigured XML parser that receives XML directly or via XML upload. In other words, they can now access XML input that references external entities.
XXE can be used to execute a Denial of Service (DOS) attack, exfiltrate your data, or even execute a remote request from your server. Developer skills go a long way in identifying and dealing with XML external entities.
To prevent this attack as an end user, you’ll want to keep your original WordPress installation up to date. XXE concerns are usually at a basic code level and are patched during version updates of the original software.
Conclusion
While the core WordPress software is constantly updated to mitigate major security threats, plugins and themes can be a major source of concern for users – especially if they are poorly coded. In essence, the more attention you pay to your site’s security, the less likely you are to encounter these problems.
