WordPress powers over 43.2% of the estimated 1.14 billion websites in the World, according to a conservative estimate. WordPress is prone to so many hackers because it is so popular. Because of this, WordPress has developed into an extremely secure platform. In actuality, competing CMS still face many of the security challenges that WordPress has throughout the years.
In this post, I’ll outline 5 WordPress Vulnerabilities And How To Fix Them and, more importantly, I’m going to show you tips, strategies, and techniques you can use to Improve your WordPress security and stay protected.
WordPress Vulnerabilities
1. Backdoors on your WordPress site
What Is a WordPress Backdoor?
A WordPress backdoor is a piece of code that gives an attacker persistent, unauthorized access to the server. Frequently, a harmful file is concealed elsewhere. Or occasionally, it can be a malicious plugin. Every month, new variations of WordPress backdoor hacks are discovered.
Hackers are always trying to insert a backdoor into WordPress. Over the years, several plugins have been utilized to transmit virus. As a result, the danger may come from anywhere. Removing WordPress backdoors later on can be a time- and resource-consuming task. However, harm can always be limited with preventative actions. If not stop the assault, a secure WordPress site can at least postpone it. In this article, we’ll learn more about locating and repairing a WordPress backdoor.
Where Are Backdoors Hidden?
1. WordPress Themes
A theme’s code is not rewritten when WordPress is updated, making it an ideal location for a backdoor. That’s why I always recommend deleting all unused themes.
2. WordPress Plugins
Another great location to conceal a backdoor. They are not removed by WordPress updates, like themes. and it’s highly recommended to Delete the unwanted Plugins.
3. WordPress Upload Folder
Many media assets are uploaded to the upload directory by most WordPress website owners. If you use WordPress, you may have hundreds of media files saved, but do you regularly check these media files?
4. The wp-config.php file
Despite being one of the most often targeted files, it is a bad option. After a hack has occurred, almost all site developers examine this file.
5. The wp-includes folder
A critical installation directory for WordPress is the wp-includes directory. It may be used by hackers to upload their backdoor. This folder’s primary content is .php files, similar to other upload directories.
How to Locate a Backdoor in a WordPress Site That’s Been Hacked and Fix It
Locate a Backdoor in a WordPress
Using a WordPress malware scanner plugin is the most straightforward approach to check your website for backdoors and vulnerabilities. Sucuri was instrumental in preventing 500,000 WordPress attacks in only three months, including 29,690 backdoor-related assaults, thus we highly recommend it.
Remove Backdoors
1. Delete Your Inactive Plugins
The best course of action is to remove the unused plugins. Update any plugins you occasionally use to the most recent versions if necessary. By doing this, all openings for hackers to re-enter the website will be closed.
2. Delete Your Inactive Themes
Remove such themes since they can simply be used to inject harmful URLs. This will close any backdoors that may be present.
3. Delete the .htaccess File
The redirect codes are occasionally inserted there. Simply deleting the file will cause it to regenerate. Go to your WordPress admin panel if it doesn’t. Permalinks » Settings There, click the save button. The .htaccess file will be created from scratch.
2. WordPress redirect hack
One sign that malware has been injected into your WordPress website is a redirect hack. This software sends all of your website visitors to spam websites.
A fairly prevalent malware symptom that daily affects hundreds of websites is a WordPress hacking redirect. Although this exploit can be fixed, it’s crucial to act quickly. When dealing with hackers, time is of the essence since the longer you wait, the more files and database tables on your site may be impacted.
How to remove WordPress redirect hack
I’ll break the recommended solutions into points to make it easy for you
Remove Backdoors
- Regardless of whether you believe your WordPress site has been compromised, you should first make a backup of the most recent version.
- Copy the site to a local drive
- Remove redirections and hidden backdoors
- Upload your cleaned files to your server
- Look for malicious admin users
- Change all admins passwords
- Search the Database For Any Malicious Links
3. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
Cross-site vulnerabilities on any WordPress site can be used to perform a malware attack known as cross-site scripting (XSS). Because so many WordPress plugins include XSS vulnerabilities, it’s actually the most typical way for WordPress sites to be compromised.
How To Prevent Cross-Site Scripting?
Updating your website regularly is one of the greatest strategies to stop XSS in WordPress. Additionally, there are a few WordPress security plugins that may defend your website against assaults like these and many others.
4. Brute-force Attacks
Automated programs make brute-force login attempts to access your website by taking advantage of weak passwords. Some of the simplest and most efficient techniques to stop brute-force attacks include employing strong passwords, restricting login attempts, monitoring unwanted logins, blocking IPs, and two-step authentication. But regrettably, many WordPress website owners ignore these security precautions, allowing hackers to quickly breach up to 30,000 websites in a single day employing brute-force assaults.
How to Protect your Website from these Attacks
- Increase Password Length
- Increase Password Complexity
- Limit Login Attempts
- Use One-time password (OTP)
- Secure Login with Two-Factor Authentication SMS (2FA)
- Change The WordPress Admin login URL
More details on this attack and how to protect your website against it please read my article How to Protect your WordPress website against Brute Force Attacks
5. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack
DDoS is a kind of cyberattack that makes use of computers and other equipment to transmit or request data from a server hosting WordPress. These queries are sent with the intention of slowing down the targeted server and ultimately crashing it.
DDoS attacks have the potential to slow down or take down a website. This leads to a poor user experience, lost revenue, and expensive attack mitigation expenditures that might run into the thousands.
Tactics to defend against DDoS attacks
1. Scale Up Bandwidth
Increase network bandwidth. A good idea is to defend against DDoS attacks is to simply increase bandwidth so that it can handle a lot of traffic if necessary. Despite this, volumetric attacks are a kind of arms race, and many businesses won’t be able to afford the network bandwidth required to handle some of the recent, really massive strikes. This is a choice that is primarily made by very big businesses and service providers.
2. Use CDN to reduce DDoS traffic
A content delivery network helps websites load faster and gives users a better overall online experience. By default, DDoS protection is offered when you join your website to these service providers to lessen attacks on your server network and application.
Conclusion
An rookie administrator may find WordPress security concerns intimidating, but it doesn’t imply there isn’t a fix available. By paying attention to professional guidance, security concerns may be simply rectified. MalCare truly believes that WordPress security should be a hands-off process, giving you peace of mind so you may focus on other tasks.