WordPress Security Research Series: WordPress Security Architecture

Welcome to Part 2 of the WordPress Security Research Beginner Series! If you haven’t had a chance, please review the series introduction blog post for more details on the goal of this series and what to expect as well as Part 1, which covers WordPress Request Architecture and Hooks. In WordPress...

Earn Up to $31,200 Per Vulnerability: Introducing the WordPress Bug Bounty Superhero Challenge!

Today, we’re incredibly excited to launch a new challenge for the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program: the WordPress Superhero Challenge! Through October 14th, we’re introducing a new active installation count range for our bounties for plugins and themes with 5,000,000+ active installations and we are...

3 More Plugins Infected in WordPress.org Supply Chain Attack Due to Compromised Developer Passwords

Update 1: As of 12:36PM EST, another plugin has been infected. Weve updated the list below to include this fourth plugin and the plugins team has been notified. Update 2: As of 2:20 PM EST, two more plugins appear to have malicious commits, however, the releases have not officially been made...

The Wordfence 2023 State of WordPress Security Report

Today, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team is releasing our 2023 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 most of our recommendations...

Malware Scanning: An Essential Layer of Website Security

Wordfence recently launched Wordfence CLI, a high performance command line malware scanner, which makes use of our extensive set of malware detection signatures to rapidly scan file systems for infections. In recent years, the WordPress community has seen a shift in emphasis towards prevention,...

Wordfence Premium Price Increase Coming in December – The First Since 2016

It has been over 6 years since we last raised our prices. Since then our team has more than doubled in size and we have introduced significant improvements to the core Wordfence product, launched a range of free and paid products, and introduced new services that include 24 hour incident response...

Common WordPress Vulnerabilities and Prevention Through Secure Coding Best Practices

WordPress has experienced exponential growth in the past several years and now holds over 42% of the CMS market share for all major sites. There are over 50,000 plugins available to download in the WordPress repository. That does not include the thousands of premium or open source plugins availab...

Episode 124: PrintNightmare 0Day Exploit Accidentally Leaked Online

Security researchers accidentally leaked zero-day exploit code for a new Windows bug, now called PrintNightmare, while easily exploitable vulnerabilities in the ProfilePress plugin, previously called WP User Avatar, were patched quickly. An unprotected cloud database containing over 814 million...

Critical Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Deletion Vulnerability Patched in Avada Builder WordPress Plugin

On May 13th, 2026, we received a submission for a critical Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Deletion vulnerability in Avada Builder, a premium WordPress plugin with an estimated 1,000,000 active installations. This vulnerability makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to delete arbitrary...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Sensitive Information Exposure Vulnerability in Gravity SMTP Plugin

On March 30th, 2026, we publicly disclosed a Sensitive Information Exposure vulnerability in Gravity SMTP, a WordPress plugin with an estimated 100,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged by unauthenticated attackers to retrieve detailed system configuration data and,...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in Everest Forms Pro Plugin

On March 30th, 2026, we publicly disclosed a critical Remote Code Execution vulnerability in Everest Forms Pro, a WordPress plugin with an estimated 4,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged by unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary PHP code on the server, leading to...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (March 2, 2026 to March 8, 2026)

Last week, there were 199 vulnerabilities disclosed in 84 WordPress Plugins and 107 WordPress Themes that have been added to the Wordfence Intelligence Vulnerability Database, and there were 59 Vulnerability Researchers that contributed to WordPress Security last week. Review those vulnerabilitie...

20,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Backdoor Vulnerability in LA-Studio Element Kit for Elementor WordPress Plugin

On January 12th, 2026, we received a submission for a Backdoor vulnerability in the LA-Studio Element Kit for Elementor, a WordPress plugin with more than 20,000+ active installations. This vulnerability makes it possible for an unauthenticated attacker to create malicious administrator users...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in King Addons for Elementor Plugin

On July 24th, 2025, we received a submission for a Privilege Escalation vulnerability in King Addons for Elementor, a WordPress plugin with more than 10,000 active installations. This vulnerability makes it possible for an unauthenticated attacker to grant themselves administrative privileges by...

WordPress Database Scanning For Malware Released in Wordfence CLI 5.0.1

Today we’re excited to announce the recent release of Wordfence CLI version 5.0.1 which includes a much requested feature from security analysts, hosting providers and ops teams: Database scanning for WordPress. Now you can scan any WordPress database you have access to for malware and...

WordPress Security Research: A Beginner’s Series

Learn How To Find WordPress Vulnerabilities Step-by-Step Welcome to the inaugural post of our WordPress Security Research Beginners Series! With the success of the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program, we wanted to provide emerging vulnerability researchers, and experienced Bug Bounty Hunters, with a...

The Cybersecurity CIA Triad: What You Need to Know as a WordPress Site Owner

One of the core concepts of cybersecurity is known as the CIA Triad. There are three pillars to the triad, with each pillar being designed to address an aspect of securing data. These three pillars are Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. The Confidentiality pillar is intended to prevent...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in Burst Statistics Plugin

On May 13th, 2026, we publicly disclosed a critical Authentication Bypass vulnerability in Burst Statistics, a WordPress plugin with 200,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged by unauthenticated attackers, with knowledge of an administrator username, to impersonate that...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (May 11, 2026 to May 17, 2026)

Last week, there were 78 vulnerabilities disclosed in 62 WordPress Plugins and 2 WordPress Themes that have been added to the Wordfence Intelligence Vulnerability Database, and there were 59 Vulnerability Researchers that contributed to WordPress Security last week. Review those vulnerabilities i...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (April 13, 2026 to April 19, 2026)

Last week, there were 139 vulnerabilities disclosed in 118 WordPress Plugins and 10 WordPress Themes that have been added to the Wordfence Intelligence Vulnerability Database, and there were 85 Vulnerability Researchers that contributed to WordPress Security last week. Review those vulnerabilitie...

400,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Unauthenticated SQL Injection Vulnerability in Ally WordPress Plugin

On February 4th, 2026, we received a submission for an SQL Injection vulnerability in Ally, a WordPress plugin estimated to have more than 400,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged to extract sensitive data from the database, such as password hashes. Props to Drew Webber...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in Post SMTP Plugin

On October 11th, 2025, we received a submission for an Account Takeover via Email Log Disclosure vulnerability in Post SMTP, a WordPress plugin with more than 400,000 active installations. This vulnerability makes it possible for an unauthenticated attacker to view email logs, including password...

Wordfence Bug Bounty Program Monthly Report – September 2025

Last month in September 2025, the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program received 374 vulnerability submissions from our growing community of security researchers working to improve the overall security posture of the WordPress ecosystem. These submissions are reviewed, triaged, and processed by the...

40,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Read Vulnerability in UiCore Elements WordPress Plugin

📢 Calling all Vulnerability Researchers and Bug Bounty Hunters!📢 🌞 Spring into Summer with Wordfence! Now through September 4, 2025, earn 2X bounty rewards forall in-scope submissions from our ‘High Threat’ list in software with fewer than 5 million active installs. Bounties up to $31,200 per...

2024 Annual WordPress Security Report by Wordfence

The 2024 WordPress security landscape saw significant changes, with new Bug Bounty Programs such as Wordfence’s creating opportunities for numerous researchers to earn a sustainable income by examining WordPress software. Despite another record year for disclosed vulnerabilities in 2025, the risi...

Threat Actors Using Obfuscation in Attempt to Evade Detection

As part of our product lineup, we offer security monitoring and malware removal services to our Wordfence Care and Response customers. In the event of a security incident, our incident response team will investigate the root cause, find and remove malware from your site, and help with other...

Post Action Report: Bad Firewall Rule Released to WPEngine Customers Wednesday

On Wednesday afternoon a small percentage of WPEngine websites using a paid version of Wordfence experienced a 500 Internal Server Error or white screen on their sites due to an erroneous firewall rule that we released. If you have experienced this issue, please check your email which contains...

Friday Long Read: What To Do About AI

This is a Friday long-read, so grab a warm cup of something and kick back because were going to take our time on this. The world is about to profoundly change. I know youre nervous - perhaps excited and optimistic, but if youve been paying attention and have been watching the trajectory of this...

AWS Attacks Targeting WordPress Increase 5X

The Wordfence Threat Intelligence team has been tracking a huge increase in malicious login attempts against WordPress sites in our network. Since November 17, 2021, the number of attacks targeting login pages has doubled. We’ve seen a global increase in attacks against WordPress sites during the...

PSA: Widespread Remote Working Scam Underway

Ive just gotten off the phone with a victim of the scam that Im about to describe. This is impacting a lot of folks, so please do spread the word. Its infuriating. Ill be around to reply to your comments below, but please do not engage in victim-blaming, because until youve actually been hit by o...

Critical SQL Injection Vulnerability Patched in WooCommerce

Update: The article originally credited Tommy DeVoss dawgyg for the discovery. Weve since been contacted by Tommy, who let us know that the credit should go to another researcher, Josh from DOS Development Operations Security On July 14, 2021, WooCommerce released an emergency patch for a SQL...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (April 6, 2026 to April 12, 2026)

Last week, there were 157 vulnerabilities disclosed in 141 WordPress Plugins and 23 WordPress Themes that have been added to the Wordfence Intelligence Vulnerability Database, and there were 79 Vulnerability Researchers that contributed to WordPress Security last week. Review those vulnerabilitie...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in Sneeit Framework Plugin

On June 10th, 2025, we received a submission for a Remote Code Execution vulnerability in Sneeit Framework, a WordPress plugin with an estimated 1,700 active installations. The plugin is bundled in multiple premium themes. This vulnerability can be leveraged to execute code remotely. The vendor...

Mass Exploit Campaign Targeting Arbitrary Plugin Installation Vulnerabilities

📢 Calling all Vulnerability Researchers and Bug Bounty Hunters!📢 🚀 Operation: Maximum Impact Challenge ! Now through November 10, 2025, earn 2X bounty rewards forall in-scope submissions in software with at least 5,000 active installs and fewer than 5 million active installs. Bounties up to $31,2...

Pushing Boundaries With Claude Code

Claude Code stormed onto the programming scene when Anthropic launched it in February of this year. It moved, what Andrej Karpathy has called "The Autonomy Slider" from around a three to a solid eight. What this means is that you can give Claude Code direction, it will come up with a plan to...

A Deep Dive into a Modular Malware Family

📢 Calling all Vulnerability Researchers and Bug Bounty Hunters!📢 🌞 Spring into Summer with Wordfence! Now through August 4, 2025, earn 2X bounty rewards forall in-scope submissions from our 'High Threat' list in software with fewer than 5 million active installs. Bounties up to $31,200 per...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in Motors Theme

📢 Calling all Vulnerability Researchers and Bug Bounty Hunters! 📢 🌞 Spring into Summer with Wordfence! Now through August 4, 2025, earn 2X bounty rewards forall in-scope submissions from our ‘High Threat’ list in software with fewer than 5 million active installs. Bounties up to $31,200 per...

Wordfence Bug Bounty Researchers: Unlock More Earning Potential With New “Refer A Researcher” Program

Today, we at Wordfence are excited to announce a groundbreaking addition to our Wordfence Bug Bounty Program: the Refer-A-Researcher Program! Refer new researchers to our program and earn commissions when they submit valid vulnerabilities. This is a great opportunity to earn even more with the...

WordPress XSSplorer Challenge: An Expanded Scope for All Researchers in the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program

From now through October 7th, 2024, we are expanding the scope of our Bug Bounty Program to include all Cross-Site Scripting XSS vulnerabilities—both Reflected and Stored—in any WordPress plugin or theme with at least 1,000 active installations for all researchers. This temporary scope expansion...

Revolutionizing WordPress Bug Bounty and Security: Latest Enhancements to the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program

We are excited to share some updates on our Bug Bounty Program today! It has been over six months since the launch of our program, during which weve awarded approximately $242,000 in bounties. Since then, our team has triaged around 2,140 vulnerability submissions, with about 1,320 deemed in-scop...

Dissecting a Clever Malware Sample for Optimized Detection and Protection

As part of our product lineup, we offer security monitoring and malware removal services to our Wordfence Care and Response customers. In case of a security incident, our incident response team will investigate the root cause, find and remove malware from your site, and help with other...

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 most of our recommendations...

Not Just for the Government: Using the NIST Framework to Secure WordPress

When setting up a WordPress website, it is easy to focus on the look and feel of the website, while overlooking the important aspect of security. This makes sense, because the security of a website is largely invisible until something goes wrong. Installing a cybersecurity plugin like Wordfence...

WordPress Malware Camouflaged As Code

In today’s post we discuss emerging techniques that attackers are using to hide the presence of malware. In the example we discuss below, the attacker’s goal is to make everything look routine to an analyst so that they do not dig deeper and discover the presence of malware and what it is doing. ...

PSA: WordPress Core Patched Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Chain

On July 17, 2026, the WordPress Security Team released updates to WordPress core addressing two security vulnerabilities. The first is an unauthenticated SQL injection vulnerability identified as CVE-2026-60137, while the second can be chained with the SQL injection to increase its impact to...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in Breeze Cache Plugin

On April 22nd, 2026, we publicly disclosed a critical Arbitrary File Upload vulnerability in Breeze Cache, a WordPress plugin with an estimated 400,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged by unauthenticated attackers to upload arbitrary files, including PHP backdoors, and...

200,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Move Vulnerability in MW WP Form WordPress Plugin

On March 16th, 2026, we received a submission for an Arbitrary File Move vulnerability in MW WP Form, a WordPress plugin with more than 200,000 active installations. This vulnerability makes it possible for unauthenticated threat actors to move arbitrary files, including the wp-config.php file,...

30,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Authentication Bypass Vulnerability in Tutor LMS Pro WordPress Plugin

On December 30th, 2025, we received a submission for an Authentication Bypass vulnerability in Tutor LMS Pro, a WordPress plugin estimated to have more than 30,000 active installations. The vulnerability makes it possible for an unauthenticated attacker to gain access to any account on a site...

10,000 WordPress Sites Protected Against Site Reset and Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in Demo Importer Plus WordPress Plugin

On November 27th, 2025, we received a submission for a Site Reset and Privilege Escalation vulnerability in Demo Importer Plus, a WordPress plugin with more than 10,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged to trigger a full site reset and assign the administrator role to the...

Rogue WordPress Plugin Conceals Multi-Tiered Credit Card Skimmers in Fake PNG Files

The Wordfence Threat Intelligence Team recently discovered a sophisticated malware campaign targeting WordPress e-commerce sites, specifically those using the WooCommerce plugin. This malware exhibits advanced features including custom encryption methods, fake images used to conceal malicious...