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High-Severity XSS Vulnerability in Metform Elementor Contact Form Builder
On January 4, 2023, independent security researcher Mohammed Chemouri reached out to the Wordfence Vulnerability Disclosure program to responsibly disclose and request a CVE ID for a vulnerability in Metform Elementor Contact Form Builder, a WordPress plugin with over...
Konami Code Backdoor Concealed in Image
Attackers are always looking for new ways to conceal their malware and evade detection, whether it’s through new forms of obfuscation, concatenation, or — in this case — unorthodox use of image file extensions. One of the most common backdoors that we have observed...
Multiple Vulnerabilities Patched in Quick Restaurant Menu Plugin
On January 16, 2023, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team responsibly disclosed several vulnerabilities in Quick Restaurant Menu, a WordPress plugin that allows users to set up restaurant menus on their sites. This plugin is vulnerable to Missing Authorization,...
WordPress Vulnerability & Patch Roundup January 2023
Vulnerability reports and responsible disclosures are essential for website security awareness and education. Automated attacks targeting known software vulnerabilities are one of the leading causes of website compromises. To help educate website owners on emerging...
How to Fix the “Deceptive Site Ahead” Warning
Did you just try to access your site and encounter a Deceptive Site Ahead warning? This error message occurs when the browser believes your website is unsafe and experiencing security issues — and it can seriously affect your traffic and reputation. When this warning...
Massive Campaign Uses Hacked WordPress Sites as Platform for Black Hat Ad Network
Every so often attackers register a new domain to host their malware. In many cases, these new domains are associated with specific malware campaigns, often related to redirecting legitimate website traffic to third party sites of their choosing — including tech...
The Wordfence 2022 State of WordPress Security Report
Today, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team is releasing our 2022 State of WordPress Security Report as a free White Paper. In our report, we look at changes in the threat landscape, analyze impactful trends, and provide recommendations based on our findings. While...
PSA: Your Site Isn’t Hacked By This Bitcoin Scam, Keep the Money
On January 19th, 2023, a member of the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team received an email from their personal blog, claiming the site had been hacked, and we received two reports from Wordfence users who received the same message. The email claimed that the site had...
Vulnerable WordPress Sites Compromised with Different Database Infections
Vulnerabilities within WordPress can lead to compromise, and oftentimes known vulnerabilities are utilized to infect WordPress sites with more than one infection. It is common for out of date websites to be attacked by multiple threat actors or targeted by the same...
Is WordPress Secure?
According to W3Techs, 43.2% of all websites on the internet use WordPress. And of all websites that use a CMS (Content Management System) more than half (64%) leverage WordPress to power their blog or website. Unfortunately, since WordPress has such a large market...
How to Fix “There Has Been a Critical Error on Your Website” in WordPress
Critical errors on any system can be extremely frustrating. But if you’ve recently encountered the “There has been a critical error on your website” message on your WordPress site, don’t fret! In many cases, critical errors are the result of conflicts in plugins,...
Holiday Attack Spikes Target Ancient Vulnerabilities and Hidden Webshells
Winter brings a number of holidays in a short period of time, and many organizations shut down or run a skeleton crew for a week or more at the end of the year and beginning of the new year. This makes it easier for would-be attackers to find success as systems are...
Bad Paths & The Importance of Using Valid URL Characters
To ensure that your web files and pages are accessible to a wide range of users with various different devices and operating systems, it’s important to use valid URL characters. Unsafe characters are known to cause compatibility issues with various browser clients,...
Eleven Vulnerabilities Patched in Royal Elementor Addons
On December 23, 2022, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team initiated the responsible disclosure process for a set of 11 vulnerabilities in Royal Elementor Addons, a WordPress plugin with over 100,000 installations. The plugin developers responded on December 26, and...
Finding & Removing Malware From Weebly Sites
Weebly is an easy-to-use website builder that allows admins to quickly create and publish responsive blogs and sites. Website builder environments are usually considered to be very safe and not prone to malware infections, but during a recent investigation I found...
What Are Cookies? A Short Guide to Managing Your Online Privacy
As much as I’d love to, we’re not here to talk about baked goods. Cookies are commonly used on websites and an essential component of the modern-day internet. However, they can pose a risk to your privacy and personal information. In today’s post we’re going to...
WordPress Vulnerability & Patch Roundup December 2022
Vulnerability reports and responsible disclosures are essential for website security awareness and education. Automated attacks targeting known software vulnerabilities are one of the leading causes of website compromises. To help educate website owners on emerging...
WP-CLI: How to Backup WordPress
Regular website backups are the foundation of a solid website security plan. In the event of data loss or malware infection, restoring a WordPress backup helps you quickly and easily recover your environment and revert it back to its last known good configuration. But...
PSA: YITH WooCommerce Gift Cards Premium Plugin Exploited in the Wild
The Wordfence Threat Intelligence team has been tracking exploits targeting a Critical Severity Arbitrary File Upload vulnerability in YITH WooCommerce Gift Cards Premium, a plugin with over 50,000 installations according to the vendor. The vulnerability, reported by...
Exploiting WordPress Plugin Vulnerabilities to Steal AWS Metadata
In an ideal world, vulnerabilities would not exist. A request would be sent to a server, properly validated, and only the intended information would be provided by the server. Of course, this is not a perfect world, and vulnerabilities can be introduced...
WordPress News
WordPress 5.8 Beta 3
WordPress 5.8 Beta 3 is now available for testing! This software is still in development, so it is not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with it. You can test the WordPress 5.8 Beta 3 in three ways:...
WP Briefing: Episode 11: WordCamp Europe 2021 in Review
In this episode, Josepha Haden Chomphosy does a mini deep dive into WordCamp Europe 2021, specifically the conversation between the project’s co-founder, Matt Mullenweg, and Brian Krogsgard formerly of PostStatus. Tune in to hear her take and for this episode’s small...
WordPress 5.8 Beta 2
WordPress 5.8 Beta 2 is now available for testing! This software is still in development, so it’s not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with it. You can test the WordPress 5.8 Beta 2 in two ways:...
WordPress 5.5.1 Maintenance Release
WordPress 5.5.1 is now available! This maintenance release features 34 bug fixes, 5 enhancements, and 5 bug fixes for the block editor. These bugs affect WordPress version 5.5, so you’ll want to upgrade. You can download WordPress 5.5.1 directly, or visit...
The Month in WordPress: August 2020
August was special for WordPress lovers, as one of the most anticipated releases, WordPress 5.5, was launched. The month also saw several updates from various contributor teams, including the soft-launch of the Learn WordPress project and updates to Gutenberg. Read on...