Scan WordPress to Detect a Full Range of Vulnerabilities
Acunetix is a full-featured WordPress security scanner. An Acunetix security check can discover the following vulnerabilities and more:- Out-of-date WordPress versions, both WordPress core files and plugins, that are missing critical security patches
- Malware disguised as 3rd party WordPress plugins and WordPress themes
- Weak passwords that can be used to launch a brute force attack
- Names of WordPress users that can be used to compromise accounts or perform social engineering
- Disclosure of publicly available wp-config.php files
- Susceptibility to XML-RPC brute force attacks
Up-to-Date WordPress Vulnerability Database
When information about WordPress security vulnerabilities is released, attackers almost immediately begin to scan for sites that do not have the latest version of WordPress or that use vulnerable plugins and then often proceed by injecting malicious code. To stop attackers in their tracks, website owners need a strong ongoing WordPress security program and a timely response when vulnerabilities are announced. From an ongoing perspective, Acunetix allows you to schedule frequent scans of your company’s web presence, enumerate WordPress websites, and focus on instances that need to be updated or decommissioned. The Acunetix Continuous Scanning feature is particularly helpful with WordPress sites. With Continuous Scanning, Acunetix performs a full scan of the website once every week as well as a daily scan for critical vulnerabilities and sends you those findings immediately. As new vulnerabilities are added to the Acunetix vulnerability database, Continuous Scanning ensures that you are testing for those vulnerabilities as soon as they are known. This keeps you in front of attackers. Scan results can then be exported as reports for different audiences to facilitate sharing vital security information and meet regulatory needs such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, or Sarbanes-Oxley. Our user interface allows security analysts to easily configure scans for individual vulnerabilities, allowing the team to quickly and easily identify WordPress sites that need immediate attention.
Vulnerability Scanner for More than Content Management Systems
Even if your business depends on WordPress websites, it may not be your only web platform now. If it is, it may not be your only one in the future. You may be considering a tool specific to WordPress or CMS systems, such as WPScan, Quttera, or Sucuri SiteCheck, but Acunetix is more flexible. It is a full-featured web application security testing tool that will evolve with your infrastructure. It detects website security issues in any web application: from CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal to custom-built applications. Last but not least, Acunetix lets you eliminate the problem permanently unlike web application firewalls that only offer temporary protection and can be circumvented. Furthermore, Acunetix is technology-independent. Whether your web application is built using PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python, JavaScript, or any other language, you can trust Acunetix to enumerate the user input fields and find the vulnerabilities that the attackers are looking for. By choosing Acunetix now, you can ensure that your security team is using a full-featured web application vulnerability scanner and that your business’s web presence can remain secure through any future plans.Frequently asked questions
Based on the data we collected, approximately one in every four business websites has WordPress security issues. There is a very high probability that your site is one of them. The only way to make sure that you don’t have any issues is to run WordPress security scans regularly.
Some WordPress vulnerabilities may be dangerous, such as SQL Injection or Cross-site Scripting. Such vulnerabilities let the attacker obtain complete control over your business site and steal confidential data or deface your site. What’s worse, with some vulnerabilities they may reach the operating system and escalate the attack to your other systems.
Find out how one vulnerability may lead to an escalation of an attack.
Most WordPress scanners don’t actually verify your security. They simply check whether you have the latest version of WordPress and the most common plugins. This leaves your business site exposed to more dangerous problems. You need a complete web vulnerability scanner that can find issues in every plugin, every theme, even those custom-made. You need a product like Acunetix.
To maintain the security of your website, you cannot just scan it once or even once every few months. You should scan it regularly because researchers continuously discover new vulnerabilities. The best practice is to scan the site completely once a week and do high-priority scans every night.
Learn more about scheduling and continuous scanning in Acunetix.
Recommended reading
Learn more about prominent vulnerabilities, keep up with recent product updates, and catch the latest news from Acunetix.
“We use Acunetix as part of our Security in the SDLC and to test code in DEV and SIT before being promoted to Production.”
Kurt Zanzi, Xerox CA-MMIS Information Securtiy Office, Xerox