The plugins for WordPress also known as Free WordPress plugins are an actual primitive pool of weaknesses and exposures. Most of them allow criminal elements to entirely take over their targeted website. Patchstack has offered an excellent conclusion in its report.

Patchstack is a company efficiently providing threat intelligence and effective security tools for the famous website building platform. The report pointed out the number of susceptibilities connected to WordPress increased 150% in 2021 the discovered in 2020.

However, 0.58% of the actual website builders in WordPress core were linked to those exposures. At least 91.37% of them were involved in free plugins and 8.63% were connected in commercial plugins.

More than 29% or a third of the never get patched critical lacks discovered in WordPress plugins. Those plugins that were never got patched eventually dumped of the plugin storehouse. Moreover, the report also pointed out that 9 plugins never received patches and were consequently terminated.

The Most Famous Exposures

Patchstack found 5 flaws of extreme severity last year, which affected at least 55 WordPress themes. One of them badly affected the file upload features and was considered a more dangerous discovery.

The company discovered 35 critical flaws among the plugins and 2 of them were found in 4 million websites. The company said the most popular flaws were also detected in the XSS cross-site scripting. It was stemmed from the mixed XSS request counterfeit, SQL inductions, and random file uploads.

The point to be noted is that the average WordPress site has installed 18 components. At least one of the installed components had a more dangerous exposure. However, the report has indicated that the number was decreased compared to the average 23 plugins installed before one year.

The Booster for WooCommerce plugin and PublishPress Capabilities were vulnerable plugins. But the Image Hover Effects Ultimate plugin and OptinMonster were also famous for last year’s targets. At least half or 43.3% of entire websites on the Internet are WordPress-powered websites.

Common WordPress Security Flaws

The followings are the most common WordPress security issues.

Brute Force

The WordPress brute force attack indicates a trial & error technique of entering various combinations of usernames and passwords. The process repeats until the discovery of a successful combination. This technique exploits the easy way to get access to the WordPress login page of your website.

It is important that WordPress doesn’t restrict multiple logins attempts by default. This flaw enables hackers to access the login page of your website using this method. Some hosts can suspend your account due to system overloads if you are under a brute force attack.

XSS or Cross-Site Scripting

The XSS or cross-site scripting vulnerability was discovered in 54.3% of entire WordPress security flaws in 2021. Cross-scripting is the most common security vulnerability discovered in WordPress plugins.

The actual method of the XSS works as an attacker finds a victim loading web pages with exposed scripts of JavaScript. The victims often load a web page without having knowledge of the visitor, so attacker uses their browser to steal data.

File Inclusion Flaws

The PHP code exploitation of your WordPress website is considered the most common security issue after the brute force attack. WordPress website uses PHP code including your themes and plugins.

The file inclusion attack happens when a website uses compromised code to load remote files. It enables attackers to get access to your WordPress website. The attackers can use this method to access (the wp-config.php) of your website.