WordPress Vulnerability scanner
WordPress is an Open Source platform and it needs scanning.
Why? Because with open source, also lots of vulnerabilities. It means WordPress security needs to be maintained and updated consistently. Online WordPress Security Scan for Vulnerabilities ensures that a WordPress security does not fall prey to WordPress security risks like:
- Out-of-date WordPress versions
- Malware
- Weak passwords
- Possibility of social engineering or accounts compromise
- Insecure wp-config.php files
- XML-RPC brute force attacks etc.
When it comes to scan WordPress for malware, an essential security practice is vulnerability scanning or vulnerability assessment to detect and identify security vulnerabilities.
WordPress hackers are always on the prowl to get into wordpress security vulnerabilities.
How dangerous are WordPress vulnerabilities can be understood by this fact that WordPress powers 39.5% of all websites in 2021 and possibility of cyber attacks on WordPress CMS has been a matter of great conc ern since 2018 when it was the prime choice, among CMS providers, of cyber attackers.
It goes without saying that risk assessments for Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress also becomes a matter of concern because of the following possible loopholes:
WordPress Website hacking statistics
The security risks of third party WordPress plugins are easy targets of malicious cyber attackers. Although plugins give great functionality but with bigger responsibilities, comes bigger responsibilities. Although WordPress developers keep coming up with new updates every 90 days, this is not the case with third party WordPress plugin vulnerabilities.
Such plugins add a wildcard with Out-of-Date Plugins Or Themes and Wordfence vouches for this fact, when more than 60% of websites on WordPress fell prey to data breach because of such risky plug-ins.
11 WordPress Vulnerability Scanners To Find WP Security Vulnerabilities
#1: SUCURI Site Check
#2: WPScans
#3: Hacker Target
#4: Detectify
#5: WPSEC
#6: Security Ninja
#7: Pentest-Tools
#8: WP Neuron
#9: Quttera
#10: Wordfence
#11: Astra Web Security
OWASP Top 10 Vulnerabilities Affecting WordPress Security
WP vulnerability is not easy. WordPress security experts do share information to protect wordpress from hackers. Compliance with OWASP Top 10 to improve WordPress security is what WordPress site administrators are recommended.
- A1: SQL Injection
- A2: Broken Authentication
- A3: Sensitive Data Exposure
- A4: XML External Entities
- A5: Broken Access Control
- A6: Security Misconfiguration
- A7: Cross-site Scripting (XSS)
- A8: Insecure Deserialization
- A9: Using components with known vulnerabilities
- A10: Insufficient logging & monitoring
A1 – SQL injection vulnerability in WordPress
SQL vulnerability in WordPress attacks a WordPress web application to inject malicious Structured Query Language (SQL) Injections statements to gain WordPress database and might modify/delete/add database information.
So the PHP database can be modified by cyber attackers to create new accounts or simply siphon online traffic to unwanted gambling or adult sites.
Trivia: As of writing, more than 60% sites ares still using older versions of WordPress .
A2- WordPress Broken Authentication and Session Management
A broken authentication ecures 2nd most common risk enlisted in OWASP top 10.
How to use Secure Login Credentials will safeguard WordPress core software against authentication-related attacks.
Reason being WordPress own server-side storage of authentication and session management and cookies where it stores user ID, name and passwords on the server-side.
No wonder why The WordPress administrator account is the most targeted aim of wordpress database attackers.
A3. WordPress Sensitive Data Exposure
WordPress security-related data leakage and sensitive data exposure is a key driver of information security leak issues. Commonly known as a data breach risks sensitive data exposure could be financially devastating to a website:
- Credentials as in Passwords, Backup files or zips and SMTP (CWE-200: Information Exposure)
- Personal Identifiable Information (PII) in the form of Names, Email addresses and Usernames (CWE-359: Exposure of Private Information (‘Privacy Violation’))
- System Information (CWE-215 ) like Internal host names, Database tables, SQL queries, Security logs, Full path disclosures, File names, Software versions, PHP Configuration (safe_mode, memory limits, execution limits, etc) : Information Exposure Through Debug Information)
A4. WordPress XML External Entities (XXE)
WordPress XML External Entity injection vulnerability could allow cyber attackers to steal or gain access to wordpress host files.
By interfering with an application’s processing of XML data, XXE Vulnerability is the chosen tactic of such malicious attackers to exploit the WordPress PHP framework. An XML External Entity (XXE) injection bug in WordPress can pave way of getting arbitrary files from the server or performing server-side request forgery (SSRF) attacks.
A5. Broken Access Control WordPress
Broken access control vulnerability, as the name suggests, is when a cyber attacker changes the parameter value, owing to which a system object is broken to ‘access’ control of.
Simply put, OWASP broken access control is about cyber attacks to exploit vulnerabilities to Access control, or authorization, to resources through insecure IDs.
A6. WordPress Security Misconfigurations
WordPress Security misconfigurations in web servers revolves around two common issues – Unpatched software and exploitation of defaults. It is extremial important to find security misconfigurations riska and weak spots like:
- Web Application missing Updates
- Vulnerable Plugins
- Incorrect File or Directory Permissions
- Multiple Websites with same PHP Process
- Insecure Passwords
- vulnerable ‘custom’ code
- Malvertising
