最も一般的な 5 つの WordPress 攻撃とその防止方法

ハッカーが WordPress Web サイトを攻撃するのではないかと心配していますか?心配する必要はありませんが、WordPress Web サイトは常にハッカーの標的になっています。これは主に、WordPress がインターネット上のすべての Web サイトの 3 分の 1 を占めているという人気のためです。

WordPress 自体は安全な Web サイト構築プラットフォームですが、それだけでは機能しません。 WordPress サイトを実行するには、プラグインとテーマが必要です。プラグインとテーマは、ハッカーが Web サイトをハッキングするために悪用する脆弱性を開発することがよくあります。

彼らはあなたのウェブサイトにアクセスすると、機密情報の盗み、顧客の詐欺、違法コンテンツの表示など、あらゆる種類の悪意のある活動を実行します.その間、あなたのサイトは検索結果で警告が表示されたり、Google によってブラックリストに登録されたり、ウェブホストによって停止されることさえあります.これらすべてが、訪問者と収益の損失につながります。

WordPress 開発者はプラットフォームを可能な限り安全に保ちますが、WordPress サイトの所有者も独自に対策を講じる必要があります。この記事では、WordPress サイトに対する最も一般的な攻撃と、それらに対して実行できる予防策について説明します.

TL;DR: ハッカーによる WordPress Web サイトへの攻撃が心配な場合は、すぐに Web サイト保護対策を講じることができます。 WordPress セキュリティ プラグイン MalCare をインストールできます。毎日サイトをスキャンして監視し、ハッカーが侵入しようとするのをブロックします.

WordPress がハッカーの標的になる理由

WordPress は、プログラミングの知識がなくても誰でも Web サイトを構築できる Web サイト構築プラットフォームです。さらに、WordPress は無料です。

その結果、このプラットフォームは現在、13 億を超えるアクティブなサイトを支えています。

これらすべての欠点は、WordPress Web サイトが他のプラットフォームで構築された Web サイトよりもターゲットにされていることです。

現在、ハッカーがサイトに侵入する方法は複数あります。最も一般的な5つに絞り込みました。何が起こるか、WordPress サイトをそれから保護する方法を説明します。

WordPress ウェブサイトに対する 5 つの最も一般的な攻撃

1.脆弱なプラグインとテーマ

WordPress サイトは、コア インストール、テーマ、プラグインの 3 つの要素を使用して作成されます。 3 つの要素すべてが、サイトをハッキングに対して脆弱にする可能性があります。

長年にわたり、WordPress コアに重大な脆弱性はありませんでした。これは、経験豊富で資格のある開発者のチームによって維持されます。彼らはプラットフォームが完全に安全であることを保証するために懸命に働いているので、心配する必要はありません.

ただし、WordPress プラグインとテーマはサードパーティの開発者によって作成されており、WordPress の脆弱性を頻繁に開発する傾向があります.

開発者が脆弱性を発見すると、すぐに修正して更新版をリリースします。

サイトの所有者であるあなたは、最新バージョンに更新する必要があり、サイトは安全になります。そのようなセキュリティ更新プログラムをすぐにインストールすることが重要です。これは、開発者がアップデートをリリースするときに、アップデートの理由もリリースするためです。したがって、脆弱性が公開されます。

これは、ハッカーが脆弱性の存在を認識したことを意味します。また、すべてのサイト所有者がサイトをすぐに更新するわけではないことも知っています。そのため、プラグインやテーマに脆弱性があることが判明すると、ボットやスキャナーをプログラムしてインターネットをクロールし、それらを使用しているサイトを見つけます。脆弱性が何であるかを正確に知ることで、悪用、侵入、wp フィード マルウェアなどのマルウェアの挿入が容易になります。

脆弱なプラグインとテーマからサイトを保護する方法

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WordPress リポジトリまたは ThemeForest や Code Canyon などのマーケットプレイスにある信頼できるテーマとプラグインのみを使用してください。

プラグイン リストを定期的に確認し、使用するものだけを保持します。不要または非アクティブなものは削除してください。

Scan your theme regularly and Ideally, you should keep only the theme that you are actively using.

Never use pirated themes and plugins. They usually contain malware that will infect your website.

Ensure you recognise all the plugins and themes on your site. Sometimes hackers install their own plugins and themes that have website backdoors installed. This gives them a secret access to your site.

2. Brute Force Attacks

To login to your WordPress site, you need to enter your login credentials i.e., a username and password.

Many times, WordPress site owners use usernames and passwords that are easy to remember. Many WordPress users retain the default username ‘admin’. Common passwords include ‘password123’ or ‘1234567’.

Hackers are well aware of this and attack the login page of WordPress sites.

They create a database of commonly used usernames and passwords. Next, they program bots to target WordPress sites and attempt different combinations present in their database.

If your login credentials are weak, the bots have a high chance of guessing it and breaking into your site. This is known as ‘Brute Force Attacks’ and is estimated that they have a 10% success rate!

How to Protect Your site Against Brute Forcing

There are a couple of steps you can take to secure your site against brute force attacks:

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By default, your WordPress username is admin. You can change it from admin to something more unique.

Use a strong WordPress password. We suggest using a passphrase in combination with numerals and symbols such as Birdsofafeather123$.

Use unique credentials that you have not used on other websites.

Limit the number of login attempts on your site. This means a WordPress user will have only limited chances to enter the right credentials such as 3 attempts or 5 attempts. After this, they will need to use the ‘forgot password’ option. You can install our MalCare security plugin on your site and it will automatically implement this login protection for you.

Use two-factor authentication wherein a WordPress user has to enter their credentials along with a one-time password that is generated on their smartphones or sent to their registered email address.

3. Injection Attacks

Almost every website has an input field like a contact form, a site search bar, or a comments section that enables visitors to enter data. Some websites also allow visitors to upload documents and image files.

Usually this data is accepted and sent to your database to be processed and stored. These fields need proper configuration to validate and sanitise the data before it goes to your database. This will ensure that only valid data is accepted. If these measures are lacking, hackers exploit it and enter malicious code.

Let’s take an example of a WordPress site that has a contact form on it. Ideally this form should accept a name, an email address, and a phone number.

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The name field should accept only letters of the alphabet.

The email address field should accept a valid email address format such as example@mysite.com.

The phone number field should contain only digits.

Now if these configurations aren’t in place, a hacker can insert malicious scripts such as:

String userLoginQuery =

 "SELECT user_id, username, password_hash FROM users WHERE username = '"

 + request.getParameter("user") + "'";

This is a code that’ll command the database to execute certain functions. In this way, hackers are able to run malicious scripts on your site which they can use to gain full control of your site.

The most popular injection attacks on WordPress sites include SQL injection attacks and Cross-Site Scripting.

How to Protect Your Website Against Injection Attacks

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Many injection attacks stem from themes and plugins that enable visitor input on your site. We suggest using only trusted themes and plugins. Next, keep your plugins and theme up to date always.

Control field entries and data submissions. This is technical and would require a developer’s assistance.

Use a WordPress firewall. If you’ve installed MalCare on your site, it automatically puts up a robust firewall to defend your site against hackers.

4. Phishing and Data Theft

Visitors interact with your website in different ways. Some of them just read your blog posts, others contact you through your contact from, and so on. If you run an ecommerce site then many visitors buy items from your website. This means they need to log into your website and enter credit card information.

When someone enters credit card information to your site, it transfers and stores the information on your site server. This information can be intercepted while it’s being transferred. Moreover, the credit card data can be stolen.

They may also break into your website and pose as you. They send emails or redirect visitors to other websites and trick them into revealing personal data and payment information.

How To Protect Your Site From Phishing and Data Theft

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Use an SSL certificate. This will encrypt the data that’s being transferred from and to your site. Even if a hacker intercepts it, they cannot use it as they won’t be able to decipher it. Refer to our guide on using SSL and HTTPS. It will also remove WordPress site not secure warning on your site.

Use a WordPress Security Plugin to receive alerts if there’s any suspicious activity on your website. The plugin will also block hack attempts.

5. Cookie Stealing

Have you noticed that when you log into a site, your browser requests to ‘remember me’ or ‘save password’? This is done so that you don’t have to enter your login credentials every time you want to access a website. You can opt to allow the browser to save your login details.

Browsers can save such data because of cookies. Cookies are tiny bits of data that record a visitor’s interaction with a website. For instance, if you run an online store, your site might track a customer’s journey such as what product they searched for and what they purchased. This data is used in analytics and also advertisers tailor ads to the visitor’s preference. Now, cookies can also store bank details and personal information.

If a hacker is able to steal your website’s cookies, they can access sensitive data of your business and your visitors. They can exploit this data to carry out their malicious acts such as defrauding customers by using their credit card information.

You can read up more on this in our easy guide to Cookie Stealing and Session Hijacking.

How To Protect Your Site From Cookie Stealing and Session Hijacking

• Change your WordPress keys and salts regularly. Keys and salts provide secure encryption of the information stored in the browser’s cookies. This measure is technical in nature. We recommend using MalCare’s WordPress hardening feature to change your keys and salts. From the MalCare dashboard, access Security> WordPress hardening> Change WordPress Security Keys and Salts.

• Here too, we recommend installing an SSL certificate to protect your website’s data.

That brings us to an end on the most common WordPress Attacks. Before we wrap up, we’d like to show you a few WordPress hardening measures that will make your site stronger against such attacks.

How To Harden Your WordPress Site Against Attacks ?

While you can take specific measures to protect your website against certain attacks, there are some overall security measures you can implement on your site for better protection. These are called WordPress hardening measures. We’ve explained it in brief here, but you can read our in-depth guide on WordPress Hardening for more detailed explanations.

1. Disabling the file editor

WordPress has a feature that enables you to edit theme and plugin files directly from the dashboard. Many website owners don’t need this feature, it is mostly used by developers. But if a hacker breaks into your wp-admin dashboard, they can insert malicious code into your theme and plugin files. Thus, if you don’t need this feature, it can be disabled.

2. Disabling plugin or theme installations

When hackers can access your site, they install their own plugins or themes. These plugins and themes are usually malicious and contain backdoors. This gives hackers a secret entry into your site.

Plus, as we mentioned, vulnerable themes and plugins are a top cause of hacked sites. If you have multiple users on your website, they may install a plugin or theme that isn’t secure. This can open up your site to hackers. If you want to avoid this, you can disable plugin and theme installations on your site.

If you don’t regularly install plugins and themes on your site, you can disable the installation option.

3. Limiting login attempts

As we mentioned before, you can limit the number of chances a WordPress user has to enter the correct login credentials to enter the site. This eliminates the risk of brute force attacks.

4. Changing security keys and salts

Keys and salts encrypt the information stored in your browser. So even if a hacker manages to steal your cookies, they can’t decipher it. However, if a hacker accesses these keys and salts, they can use it to decrypt the cookies. Regularly changing your keys and salts can help avoid cookie theft.

5. Blocking PHP execution in unknown folders

There are only certain files and folders on your WordPress site that execute code. Other folders only store information such as your Uploads folder that stores images and videos.

However, when a hacker gains access to your website, they insert php code into random folders or even create their own folders.

You can block such activity by disabling PHP executions in unknown folders.

Implementing these measures requires technical expertise. We don’t recommend doing it manually. It’s much safer and easier to use a plugin like MalCare that lets you do this in just a few clicks.

With that, we’re confident your WordPress website is secured and protected against hackers.

Final Thoughts

Hackers have a multitude of ways to break into your WordPress site and they come up with new ones ever so often!

You need to take your security measures to protect your website and ensure it’s safe against hack attacks.

We recommend using our MalCare Security Plugin to secure your WordPress site. It will block hackers and malicious bots from accessing your site. You can rest assured your site is being monitored and protected.

Prevent Hacks With our MalCare Security Plugin !