What is Hardening WordPress Security?

WordPress is a popular content management system and a target for hackers. According to W3Techs, the WordPress platform accounts for more than 25% of the websites worldwide. It is quite obvious that WordPress is not just a blogging platform. A majority of WordPress sites serve a broad range of other purposes. However, the worst nightmare for a WordPress developer is to see a malicious hacking attack on his site. Hardening WordPress

Hacks are very much common and happening frequently, with 38.9% of developers reporting a compromise in the last 12 months. In general, WordPress Security Hardening means taking precautionary and preventive steps to lock down your WordPress website. This would essentially prevent hackers and vulnerabilities from affecting the website or blog.

Certainly, hacks are very much common and happening frequently, with 38.9% of developers reporting a compromise in the last 12 months.

Why is WordPress Security Hardening Need of the Hour?

Security is the most important concern for organisations these days. A well-known and reliable resource of information related to web application security is the OWASP, a non-profit online community. The Open Web Application Security Project creates articles, tools, and technologies on web security. Their website is a comprehensive resource for information on the latest vulnerabilities, threats, attacks and countermeasures.

Here at Templatertoaster website maker and WordPress theme builder, Let us look at security from a WordPress standpoint and the details of WordPress vulnerabilities and security issues. We will also try to understand the strategies and techniques for hardening WordPress security.

Hardening WordPress Security Issues

Some people believe WordPress is prone to security vulnerabilities and inherently not being a safe platform for secure businesses. Many times this can be true because of series of reasons. To enumerate, as per a Q2 2016 report by Sucuri, WordPress at 74% continues to lead the number of infected websites they worked on.

In most cases, website hacking occurs primarily since users continue to follow industry-proven security worst practices. These include using obsolete WordPress software, improper system administration, unmanaged credentials’ handling and more. Most beginner WordPress users lack the necessary knowledge, on hardening WordPress Security, which makes their websites vulnerable. Advanced users also have the opinion that security practices once implemented will protect their websites forever. They are not aware of the need to revise, review and update the security measures regularly.

What makes WordPress a Target for Hackers?

As per a recent investigation, reported by WordPress security outfit WP White Security, 73% of the 40,000 most popular WordPress are vulnerable to attack.

To point out, WordPress is the most popular CMS and this has resulted in an ecosystem that includes over 42,000 plugins. This is to say, plugins are a very important asset to a WordPress site. An average of over 10 plugins is in use on every website. The foremost advantage of WordPress is its extensibility. However, it is also the cause of the vast number of WordPress security vulnerabilities. As per a survey conducted by Wordfence, around 61.1% of WordPress sites are customised substantially.

With a multitude of theme and plugin combinations, vulnerabilities continue to exist and new ones are constantly brought into the picture. Each new plugin is prone to adding additional vulnerabilities.

WordPress Vulnerabilities

There are three main components of WordPress that are important from a security perspective.

• Core – the basic default WordPress installation files that provide most of the functionality.
• Plugins – additional code to improve and extend the basic functionality.
• Theme – the presentation layer that may offer some limited extended functionality.

A point to note is that WordPress security vulnerabilities go beyond the core into the third-party themes or plugins. Notably, a recent report by wpscan.org, states that from the 3,972 known WordPress security vulnerabilities:

52% are from WordPress plugins

37% are from core WordPress

11% are from WordPress themes

The goal of a website hacker is to gain unauthorised access to your WordPress site with administrative access. You can do this from the WordPress dashboard or on the server-side by inserting scripts or files. Also, hacking may not always be done by a person. The terms given below usually describe the hacking system:

The terms mentioned below mostly describes the hacking system:

• Single Bot is an automated computer that can attack one site at a time or a small number of sites simultaneously. The attacks are usually unsophisticated attacks.
• A Person who goes into hacking systems manually attacks one site at a time. This method is slow but comprehensive.
• A Botnet is a group of computers that at the same time attack multiple sites rapidly. These attacks are unsophisticated but a large number of computers with multiple IPs add to the complexity.

There are two primary types of attacks that can take place against WordPress websites:

Non-targeted automated attacks are generic and take advantage of a known vulnerability. Ahese attacks may work by scanning a range of IP addresses. The automated system looks for a specific version of WordPress or a plugin. Mostly, these versions are most prone to a potentially exploitable vulnerability.

Targeted attacks happen when a hacker targets a website specifically. Notably, popular websites are most likely to be the target of hackers.

Listed below are the common security issues and risks associated with WordPress:

1. Brute Force Attacks:

These attacks refer to the repetitive entering of multiple usernames and password combinations until the attack is successful. The brute force attack method exploits the WordPress login screen to get access to the website. WordPress, by default, doesn’t limit login attempts. Bots can attack the WordPress login page using the brute force method.

2. File Inclusion Exploits:

A WordPress website runs at the backend on PHP code. Vulnerabilities in the PHP code are the next most common security issue with WordPress. File inclusion exploits occur if someone is using a vulnerable code to load remote unsafe files. These allow hackers to gain access to the website and its wp-config.php file.

3. SQL Injections:

WordPress uses SQL to query the database. This makes it vulnerable to SQL Injection Attacks. SQL injections occur when an attacker gains access to the WordPress database and the website data. He may be able to create a new admin user account. He can then log in and get full access to the WordPress website. SQL injections may also insert new data into the WordPress database such as links to malicious or spam websites.

4. Cross-site Scripting (XSS):

The most common vulnerability found in WordPress plugins, XSS vulnerabilities are very common and likewise complex. The attacker gets an innocent victim to load web pages with insecure JavaScript scripts. These scripts allow stealing the data from vulnerable WordPress website.

5. Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF):

A hacking mechanism tricks a user into performing an unwanted action. This usually is done from within a web application, in which the authentication is done. For example, a phishing email with a link to a page that would delete a user’s account in the WordPress admin.

6. Malware:

Malicious software or Malware is code that can gain unauthorised access to a website and gather sensitive data. With thousands of types of malware infections on the web, WordPress is not vulnerable to all of them. The four most common WordPress malware infections are:

• Backdoors
• Drive-by downloads
• Pharma hacks
• Malicious redirects

Hardening WordPress Security

The first set to hardening WordPress security is to keep the website up-to-date and aware of the latest vulnerabilities. You will then be able to update your site for every new vulnerability. But updating WordPress is not enough. There are more issues to handle to be able to truly secure your WordPress websites.

What Needs to be Protected?

It is just not about protecting the website and its files. The user or customer data is most crucial and needs security as well as protection. The WordPress MySQL database is the backend for WordPress and stores this data.

You need to primarily protect the customers’ data. If the website is insecure, it is prone to hacking, as a result, the data becomes impossible to recover.

Next, you need to protect your website. This includes protecting the website files also. It would be disastrous if an attacker is able to read or modify your website files or source code. They can collect user data and also gain admin login access. Once the files are compromised the user data gets compromised too.

           Call +1-857-342-2365 for help and support of Hardening WordPress.