10 WordPress Security Issues & Vulnerabilities Everyone Should Know About. WordPress is known to be the most popular CMS which is also the most hacked one. If your website gets hacked, you will end up wasting a lot of money, energy, and time.
It can threaten your website’s reputation and authority especially if your site visitors are affected by the attacks.
So, here are given some of the crucial WordPress security issues and vulnerabilities that you should know about before opting for WordPress website development services. By knowing these, you would be able to protect your WordPress website.
- Unauthorized Logins
This is mainly performed by “brute-force”. In a brute-force login, the attacker considers using a bot for running through numerous potential username-password combinations.
If they are lucky enough, then they will guess the right credentials and thereby get access to your protected information.
One of the most effective ways to avoid this type of situation is to frame a strong password which will be very difficult to crack even with the help of any robust technology.
- Undefined User Roles
Whenever you opt for WordPress website development services, you will come across six different user roles to select from such as Administrator or Subscriber.
Again, each of the roles is available with native permissions which restrict or allow users from taking certain actions on your website such as posting content, as well as modifying plugins.
In this case, the administrator is considered to be a default user role who has the maximum control on any WordPress site.
If you have multiple users and you have not changed the default settings, then it can become a big issue. As everyone is an admin which makes your website vulnerable to attacks. This is the reason, why you should focus on monitoring all permissions to avoid such issues.
- Outdated Plugins And Themes
If your WordPress website possesses outdated plugins and themes, then you should opt for the WordPress theme customization service without any delay.
This is because the presence of outdated plugins and themes makes your website vulnerable to attacks. Not only that, but the developers tend to create a lot of unique plugins and themes which the WordPress website owners can use for customizing their sites.
- SEO Spam
SEO hacks or spam generally take the advantage of your top-ranking pages, fill them with pop-up ads and spammy keywords. They make use of your hard work for selling their items or fake merchandise.
These types of attacks mostly happen due to undefined user roles as well as successful brute attacks. Even more dangerous is that these hacks are very difficult to detect.
Again, these sorts of SEO Spam are only noticeable to the SEO crawlers as they will index your website for spammy keywords. The best way to avoid such issues is to use a high-quality security plugin that can run malware scans.
- Outdated Core Software
While selecting the WordPress website development services, you should only go for such services that will continuously enhance the security and functionality of the platform for providing a flawless user experience.
This is because the outdated core WordPress software makes your website vulnerable to hacks. These updates are designed for effectively addressing serious security issues.
So, in case, your software has become updated, you will not be able to update your plugins and themes. Due to this, your website becomes more vulnerable to security threats.
- Malware
Malware is considered to be a broad term that involves any malicious software. Hackers can place malware files particularly in legitimate website files or insert code in existing files. By doing so, they focus on stealing from websites and also their visitors.
Again, the vulnerability to malware is directly associated with other issues. Due to the outdated and unauthorized plugins and themes, the malware enters your WordPress website. So, you should always focus on keeping everything updated to avoid these sorts of security issues.
- Phishing
In phishing, hackers send out a huge amount of spammy links hoping that anyone will click on this and their information will be leaked.
Due to this reason, you should always avoid clicking on spam emails that your receive in your inbox or text messages from unknown numbers.
Similarly, WordPress is also vulnerable to such attacks which occur due to outdated themes, plugins, software, or lack of security checks.
You can protect your WordPress website against phishing by using secure passwords, monitoring website activity, and conducting regular updates.
Other than that, you can download some additional security measures for your website such as ReCAPTCHA which protects against phishing attacks.
- SQL Injections
SQL is a programming language that is used for quickly accessing the stored data on a particular website. This is also a preferred WordPress language specifically for database management.
Again, the hackers can make use of this to their advantage. During an SQL injection, a hacker receives the ability to directly view as well as modify the database of your website.
They can again use this SQL for making new accounts on your website, adding unauthorized content and links, and deleting, editing, or leaking data. This particular security threat occurs when the hackers enter information in the lead form or contact forms present on your website.
They also submit code that will run and thereby making specific changes to your website. To prevent such security issues, you should restrict the submission of special characters in any visitor submissions.
Also, you can use a WordPress security plugin or a WordPress form plugin. Injection attempts are also prevented by using captcha as an ultimate step in the submission process.
- Cross-Site Scripting
XSS or Cross-Site Scripting occurs when a hacker places malicious code specifically into the backend code of your website. This is more or less similar to the database injections. In this case, XSS targets the functionality of your web page.
By doing so, they try to harm your website visitors by posting a link to an inappropriate or faulty website. This also occurs due to outdated WordPress plugins and themes. So, you should always keep your website updated by opting for a WordPress theme customization service.
- Hotlinking
This is one of the worst security issues which you could come across. In this case, your work is used by others without credit or permission. Another website will embed content such as images from your website which is hosted on your server.
So, they take advantage of the money which you are spending for keeping your website updated. But, hotlinking is not regarded as a direct spammy attack as the people who are practicing this are not hackers.
This is illegal in case, you are licensed and also restricted for your individual use. You can add visible watermarks to your content to protect it from the hotlinkers.
Final Words
So, the above-discussed ones are some of the WordPress security issues and vulnerabilities that everyone should essentially know about.
As a website owner, you should always keep yourself updated about cybersecurity. This contributes to protect the growth of your business and defend your online presence.