In the past four months, Sucuri has seen an increase in the number of plugins affected by the misuse of WordPress’ update_option() function. This function is used to update a named option/value in the options database table. If developers do not implement the permission flow correctly, attackers can gain admin access or inject arbitrary data […]
Tag Archives: WordPress Security
Dissecting the WordPress 5.2.3 Update
Last week, WordPress released version 5.2.3 which was a security and maintenance update, and as such, contained many security fixes. Part of our day to day work is to analyse these security releases, discover what security issue it is fixing and come up with a Proof of Concept for further internal testing. Based on our […]
How to Audit & Cleanup WordPress Plugins & Themes
In an interview with Smashing Magazine our CoFounder (now Head of Security Products at GoDaddy) Tony Perez was asked the following question. What Makes WordPress Vulnerable? “Here’s the simple answer. Old versions of WordPress, along with theme and plugin vulnerabilities, multiplied by the CMS’ popularity, with the end user thrown into the mix, make for […]
How Domain Expiration Can Potentially Disrupt Other Websites
A website owner recently reached out to us about a pop-up advertisement problem on their website which occurred any time someone clicked anywhere on the web page. This irritating pop-up didn’t come from malware placed in the website’s files or database, but rather from a single JavaScript source that the owner added to a widget: […]
Malicious Plugin Used to Encrypt WordPress Posts
During a recent cleanup, we found an interesting malicious WordPress plugin, “WP Security”, that was being used to encrypt blog post content. The website owner complained of a newly installed and activated plugin on their website that was rendering their original content unreadable. The plugin encrypted posts with the ‘AES-256-CBC’ method by using the openssl_encrypt […]
Neapolitan Backdoor Injection
Most of us are familiar with Neapolitan ice cream: a flavour whose distinguishing characteristic is not one single flavour but several. Many also know it as the ice cream which your roommate eats all of the chocolate, leaving you with the paltry remains of the notably less popular vanilla and strawberry flavours. While cleaning a […]
Reverse Hardening WordPress Config
Hardening is the process of securing a website or system against known security weaknesses or potential issues to reduce the attack surface. The more functions or features a website has, the more potential points of entry an attacker has to leverage. For example, a popular method for hardening WordPress installations is to disable the backend […]
Icegram Persistent Cross-Site Scripting
Icegram is a plugin that helps you collect email addresses for your newsletter. Other features include light-box popup offers, header action bars, toast notifications, and slide-in messengers. Versions 1.10.28.2 and lower are affected by a persistent Cross-Site Scripting in the admin area. This plugin has over 40,000 installations and any attacker with a subscriber account […]
7 Things You Should Monitor in WordPress Activity Logs
WordPress activity logs can be helpful when troubleshooting or trying to identify a hack. In this article, you’ll learn about the seven things you should monitor in your WordPress logs. Over the years, WordPress has grown more complex. WordPress is used by people in a variety of environments, ranging from small shops to large enterprises. […]
Massive 1800ForBail WordPress Hacks
Sucuri malware analyst Kaushal Bhavsar recently brought our attention to a massive campaign responsible for adding either “1800ForBail” or “1800ForBail – One+Number” keywords to the titles of vulnerable WordPress sites. 1800ForBail in Search Results Google currently returns 158,000 results for the [intitle:1800ForBail] query. Of course, this count includes internal pages on compromised websites. At the […]
