We’ve all heard it million times before – backups are important. Still, the reality is that even today, backups remain one of the most overlooked and under-utilized precautions we can take to protect our vital data. Why are backups so important Put simply, a good set of backups can save your website when absolutely everythingRead […]
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FBI Public Service Annoucement: Defacements Exploiting WordPress Vulnerabilities
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) just released a public service announcement (PSA) to the public about a large number of websites being exploited and compromised through WordPress plugin vulnerabilities: Continuous Web site defacements are being perpetrated by individuals sympathetic to the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL) a.k.a. Islamic State of Iraq and […]
Security Advisory: Persistent XSS in WP-Super-Cache
Security Risk: Dangerous Exploitation level: Very Easy/Remote DREAD Score: 8/10 Vulnerability: Persistent XSS Patched Version: 1.4.4 During a routine audit for our Website Firewall (WAF), we discovered a dangerous Persistent XSS vulnerability affecting the very popular WP-Super-Cache plugin (more than a million active installs according to wordpress.org). The security issue, as well as another bug-fix […]
Website Malware – The SWF iFrame Injector Evolves
Last year, we released a post about a malware injector found in an Adobe Flash (.SWF) file. In that post, we showed how a .SWF file is used to inject an invisible, malicious iFrame. It appears that the author of that Flash malware continued with this method of infection. Now we are seeing more varieties […]
Intro to E-Commerce and PCI Compliance – Part I
Have you ever heard of the term Payment Card Industry (PCI)? Specifically, PCI compliance? If you have an e-commerce website, you probably have already heard about it. But do you really understand what it means for you and your online business? In this series, we will try to explain the PCI standard and how it […]
WordPress Malware Causes Psuedo-Darkleech Infection
Source: The National Archives (UK) Darkleech is a nasty malware infection that infects web servers at the root level. It use malicious Apache modules to add hidden iFrames to certain responses. It’s difficult to detect because the malware is only active when both server and site admins are not logged in, and the iFrame is […]
Why Website Reinfections Happen
I joined Sucuri a little over a month ago. My job is actually as a Social Media Specialist, but we have this process where regardless of your job you have to learn what website infections look like and more importantly, how to clean them. It’s this idea that regardless of you are you must always […]
The Impacts of a Hacked Website
Today, with the proliferation of open-source technologies like WordPress, Joomla! and other Content Management Systems (CMS) people around the world are able to quickly establish a virtual presence with little to no cost. In the process however, a lot is being lost in terms of what it means to own a website. We are failing […]
Understanding WordPress Plugin Vulnerabilities
The last 7 days have been very busy with a number of vulnerabilities being disclosed on multiple WordPress plugins. Some of them are minor issues, some are more relevant, while others are what we’d categorize as noise. How are you supposed to make sense of all this? To help provide some clarity on the influx […]
Inverted WordPress Trojan
Trojan (or trojan horse) is software that does (or pretends to be doing) something useful but also contains a secret malicious payload that inconspicuously does something bad. In WordPress, typical trojans are plugins and themes (usually pirated) which may have backdoors, or send out spam, create doorways, inject hidden links or malware. The trojan model […]

