50,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in Uncanny Automator WordPress Plugin

📢Did you know Wordfence runs aBug Bounty Program for all WordPress plugins and themes at no cost to vendors? Researchers can earn up to $31,200 per vulnerability , for all in-scope vulnerabilities submitted to our Bug Bounty Program! Find a vulnerability, submit the details directly to us, and we...

28,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Read and Deletion Vulnerability in WPLMS WordPress Theme

🦸 👻 Calling all superheroes and haunters! Introducing theCybersecurity Month Spooktacular Haunt and the WordPress Superhero Challenge for the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program! Through November 11th, 2024: All in-scope vulnerability types for WordPress plugins/themes with = 1,000 active installations...

Introducing the 0-day Threat Hunt Bug Bounty Promo Through July 11th, 2024!

At Wordfence our mission is to Secure The Web. WordPress powers over 40% of the Web, and Wordfence secures over 5 million WordPress websites. Thats why we’ve decided to run another exciting and new promotion for our Bug Bounty Program. With this promotion, our goal is to get more of the highest...

Fostering Innovation in Web Security

Ive always created growth by focusing on free. It started back in 2003 when I launched WorkZoo in London. WorkZoo was a job search engine that ended up being one of Time Magazines top 50 websites of 2005. These days we take free search capability for granted, but 20 years ago, before Nginx came...

Authorization vs. Intent: Why You Should Always Verify Both

The Wordfence Threat Intelligence team has observed a recent increase in the number of partial vulnerability patches that don’t properly address separate underlying issues. More specifically, we have been seeing an increase in Missing Authorization vulnerabilities that are fixed using tools...

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 been hacked due to a...

What Does The Fox Hack? Breaking Down the Anonymous Fox F-Automatical Script

While performing routine security research, one of our threat analysts discovered the latest version of a Command and Control C2 script, which is referred to as F-Automatical within the script’s code and was commonly known as FoxAuto in older versions. This is the seventh version of this automati...

PSA: Nearly 5 Million Attacks Blocked Targeting 0-Day in BackupBuddy Plugin

Late evening, on September 6, 2022, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team was alerted to the presence of a vulnerability being actively exploited in BackupBuddy, a WordPress plugin we estimate has around 140,000 active installations. This vulnerability makes it possible for unauthenticated users...

GoDaddy Breached – Plaintext Passwords – 1.2M Affected

There is an update available here: GoDaddy Breach Widens to tsoHost, Media Temple, 123Reg, Domain Factory, Heart Internet, and Host Europe This morning, GoDaddy disclosed that an unknown attacker had gained unauthorized access to the system used to provision the company’s Managed WordPress sites,...

Multiple Vulnerabilities in Brizy Page Builder Plugin Allow Site Takeover

Note: To receive disclosures like this in your inbox the moment they’re published, you can subscribe to our WordPress Security Mailing List. On August 19, 2021, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team initiated the Responsible Disclosure process for Brizy - Page Builder, a WordPress plugin install...

Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation Vulnerability Patched in Kirki WordPress Plugin

On May 4th, 2026, we received a submission for an Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation vulnerability in the Kirki WordPress plugin. Although the plugin has more than 500,000 active installations, we estimate that only around 150,000 sites are using a vulnerable version, as the issue was introduce...

1,000,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Read and SQL Injection Vulnerabilities in Avada Builder WordPress Plugin

On March 21st, 2026, we received a submission for an Arbitrary File Read and an SQL Injection vulnerability in Avada Builder, a WordPress plugin with an estimated 1,000,000 active installations. The arbitrary file read vulnerability can be used by authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level...

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

Did you know Wordfence runs aBug Bounty Program for all WordPress plugin and themes at no cost to vendors? Researchers can earn up to $31,200 per vulnerability , for all in-scope vulnerabilities submitted to our Bug Bounty Program! Find a vulnerability, submit the details directly to us, and we...

800,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Upload Vulnerability in WPvivid Backup WordPress Plugin

On January 12th, 2026, we received a submission for an Arbitrary File Upload vulnerability in WPvivid Backup, a WordPress plugin with more than 800,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be used by unauthenticated attackers to upload arbitrary files to a vulnerable site and achieve remo...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (November 24, 2025 to November 30, 2025)

Last week, there were 126 vulnerabilities disclosed in 113 WordPress Plugins and 5 WordPress Themes that have been added to the Wordfence Intelligence Vulnerability Database, and there were 60 Vulnerability Researchers that contributed to WordPress Security last week. Review those vulnerabilities...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (September 1, 2025 to September 7, 2025)

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 $31,200 pe...

How To Find SQL Injection Vulnerabilities in WordPress Plugins and Themes

SQL Injection SQLi , a vulnerability almost as old as database-driven web applications themselves CWE-89, persists as a classic example of failing to neutralize user-supplied input before it's used in a SQL query. So why does this well-understood vulnerability type continue to exist? In the...

50,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Upload Vulnerability in Greenshift WordPress Plugin

📢In case you missed it, Wordfence just published itsannual WordPress security report for 2024. Read it now to learn more about the evolving risk landscape of WordPress so you can keep your sites protected in 2025 and beyond. On April 14th, 2025, we received a submission for an Arbitrary File Uplo...

Get Spooked By Huge Scope and Rewards in the Wordfence Bug Bounty Cybersecurity Month Spooktacular Haunt!

Calling all vulnerability researchers! Get ready to immerse yourselves in the world of WordPress security with the Wordfence Cybersecurity Month Spooktacular Haunt , running from now through November 11th, 2024! What's Happening During This Cybersecurity Month Spooktacular Haunt? In celebration o...

Supply Chain Attack on WordPress.org Plugins Leads to 5 Maliciously Compromised WordPress Plugins

On Monday June 24th, 2024 the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team became aware of a plugin, Social Warfare, that was injected with malicious code on June 22, 2024 based on a forum post by the WordPress.org Plugin Review team. We immediately checked the malicious file and uploaded it to our interna...

SQL Injection Vulnerability Patched in Tutor LMS WordPress Plugin

Did you know were running a Bug Bounty Extravaganza again? Earn over 6x our usual bounty rates, up to $10,000, for all vulnerabilities submitted through May 27th, 2024 when you opt to have Wordfence handle responsible disclosure! On February 15th, 2024, during our second Bug Bounty Extravaganza, ...

PSA: Wordfence Brand Being Actively Used in Phishing Campaigns

Earlier this week we became aware that malicious actors are using Wordfence brand image to run a phishing scam on WordPress and Wordfence users, posing as unknown login notifications from their own website while linking to a fake login page, clearly aiming to steal WordPress login credentials. If...

Open-Source Projects Use the Wordfence Vulnerability Data Feed API and You Can Too!

Prior to joining the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team, I spent several years as a vulnerability analyst, responsible for collecting, analyzing, and curating every publicly disclosed vulnerability. This meant collecting vulnerability information from almost a hundred different, disparate sources...

The WordPress Ecosystem is Becoming More Secure with Responsible Disclosure Becoming More Common

The Wordfence 2022 State of WordPress Security Report was released on January 24th, 2023. One area that we reviewed in this report were the vulnerabilities disclosed in 2022. Keeping in mind that some vulnerabilities affected multiple plugins, themes, and WordPress core, a total of 2,370...

It’s Not You. It’s Them. On Hacking and Responsible Disclosure.

A story was recently posted to Hacker News celebrating a hack of IoT devices at a school that let a student and their friends rickroll the school via a video system. On the one hand, this guy is my personal hero and I want to be them. But Im a cybersecurity professional, I run a team that has the...

2021 Mid-Year WordPress Security Report: A Collaboration Between Wordfence and WPScan

Wordfence has collaborated with WPScan to conduct a 2021 mid-year review on the state of WordPress security. Using attack data from Wordfence’s internal threat intelligence platform, and vulnerability data from WPScan’s vulnerability database, we were able to analyze the current trend of attacks ...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in Service Finder Bookings Plugin

📢 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...

Interesting WordPress Malware Disguised as Legitimate Anti-Malware Plugin

📢In case you missed it, Wordfence just published itsannual WordPress security report for 2024. Read it now to learn more about the evolving risk landscape of WordPress so you can keep your sites protected in 2025 and beyond. The Wordfence Threat Intelligence team recently discovered an interestin...

20,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Upload and Deletion Vulnerabilities in WP Ultimate CSV Importer WordPress Plugin

📢Did you know Wordfence runs aBug Bounty Program for all WordPress plugins and themes at no cost to vendors? Researchers can earn up to $31,200 per vulnerability , for all in-scope vulnerabilities submitted to our Bug Bounty Program! Find a vulnerability, submit the details directly to us, and we...

8,000 WordPress Sites affected by Arbitrary File Upload Vulnerability in WP Hotel Booking WordPress Plugin

📢 Did you know Wordfence runs aBug Bounty Program for all WordPress plugins and themes at no cost to vendors? Through October 7th, 2024, XSS vulnerabilities in all plugins and themes with =1,000 Active Installs are in scope for all researchers. In addition, through October 14th, 2024 , r esearche...

The Aftermath of the WordPress.org Supply Chain Attack: New Malware and Techniques Emerge

On Monday June 24th, 2024 the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team was made aware of the presence of malware in the Social Warfare repository plugin. After adding the malicious code to our Threat Intelligence Database and examining it, we discovered additional affected plugins and continued...

Introducing Wordfence CLI 3.0.1: Now With Automatic Remediation!

Note: This post refers to Wordfence CLI, the command line tool for operations teams to rapidly scan large numbers of WordPress websites for vulnerabilities and malware, not the Wordfence plugin which is deeply integrated into WordPress and provides additional functionality, like a firewall,...

Know Your Malware Part Two – Hacky Obfuscation Techniques

In the first post in this series, we covered common PHP encoding techniques and how they’re used by malware to hide from security analysts and scanners. In today’s post, we’re going to dive a little bit deeper into other obfuscation techniques that make use of other features available in PHP...

StylemixThemes Addresses Authentication Bypass Vulnerability in BookIt WordPress Plugin

On May 22, 2023, our Wordfence Threat Intelligence team identified and began the responsible disclosure process for an Authentication Bypass vulnerability in StylemixThemes’s BookIt plugin, which is actively installed on more than 10,000 WordPress websites. The vulnerability makes it possible for...

Reflected XSS in Spam protection, AntiSpam, FireWall by CleanTalk

Update - after this article was published, Denis Shagimuratov of CleanTalk reached out to us on Twitter. It appears that they didnt receive our disclosure because our contact at the company was no longer the correct recipient for this type of issue. On February 15, 2022, the Wordfence Threat...

Nulled WordPress Plugins – Dangers and Downsides

In our 2020 Threat Report, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence Team identified malware distributed via nulled, pirated, or counterfeit plugins and themes as one of the largest threats facing the WordPress ecosystem. Many site owners are unaware of the risks associated with using nulled plugins, and...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (July 27, 2026 to August 2, 2026)

Last week, there were 247 vulnerabilities disclosed in 195 WordPress Plugins and 2 WordPress Themes that have been added to the Wordfence Intelligence Vulnerability Database, and there were 135 Vulnerability Researchers that contributed to WordPress Security last week. Review those vulnerabilitie...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (June 22, 2026 to June 28, 2026)

Last week, there were 243 vulnerabilities disclosed in 195 WordPress Plugins and 9 WordPress Themes that have been added to the Wordfence Intelligence Vulnerability Database, and there were 131 Vulnerability Researchers that contributed to WordPress Security last week. Review those vulnerabilitie...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (June 8, 2026 to June 14, 2026)

Last week, there were 102 vulnerabilities disclosed in 90 WordPress Plugins and 5 WordPress Themes that have been added to the Wordfence Intelligence Vulnerability Database, and there were 68 Vulnerability Researchers that contributed to WordPress Security last week. Review those vulnerabilities ...

Critical Unauthenticated Authentication Bypass Vulnerability Patched in UpdraftPlus WordPress Plugin

On June 2nd, 2026, we received a submission for a critical Unauthenticated Authentication Bypass vulnerability in UpdraftPlus, a WordPress plugin with more than 3 million active installations. Although the plugin has such a large install base, the vulnerability is only exploitable on sites that...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (May 4, 2026 to May 10, 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...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in Ninja Forms – File Upload Plugin

On April 6th, 2026, we publicly disclosed a critical Arbitrary File Upload vulnerability in Ninja Forms – File Upload, a WordPress plugin with an estimated 50,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged by unauthenticated attackers to upload arbitrary files, including PHP...

100,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in AI Engine WordPress Plugin

On October 4th, 2025, we received a submission for a Sensitive Information Exposure vulnerability in AI Engine, a WordPress plugin with more than 100,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be exploited by unauthenticated attackers to extract the bearer token and then get full access to...

Wordfence Bug Bounty Program Monthly Report – August 2025

Last month in August 2025, the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program received 438 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 Wordfence...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (July 7, 2025 to July 13, 2025)

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...

30,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Upload Vulnerability in Security & Malware scan by CleanTalk WordPress Plugin

On December 7th, 2024, we received a submission for an Arbitrary File Upload vulnerability in Security & Malware scan by CleanTalk, a WordPress plugin with more than 30,000 active installations. This vulnerability makes it possible for an unauthenticated attacker to upload arbitrary files to a...

10,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Upload Vulnerability in AI Power: Complete AI Pack WordPress Plugin

🦸 👻 Calling all superheroes and haunters! Introducing theCybersecurity Month Spooktacular Haunt and the WordPress Superhero Challenge for the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program! Through November 11th, 2024: All in-scope vulnerability types for WordPress plugins/themes with = 1,000 active installations...

20,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Remote Code Execution Vulnerability in Bit File Manager WordPress Plugin

📢 Did you know Wordfence runs a Bug Bounty Program for all WordPress plugin and themes at no cost to vendors? Through October 14th, researchers can earn up to $31,200, for all in-scope vulnerabilities submitted to our Bug Bounty Program! Find a vulnerability, submit the details directly to us, an...

$3,094 Bounty Awarded and 150,000 WordPress Sites Protected Against Arbitrary File Upload Vulnerability Patched in Modern Events Calendar WordPress Plugin

📢 Did you know Wordfence runs a Bug Bounty Program for all WordPress plugin and themes at no cost to vendors? Researchers can earn up to $10,400, for all in-scope vulnerabilities submitted to our Bug Bounty Program! Find a vulnerability, submit the details directly to us, and we handle all the...

Wordfence Researcher Featured on Critical Thinking Podcast: Sharing Advanced WordPress Bug Bounty Tips and Tricks

Did you know were running a Bug Bounty Extravaganza again? Earn over 6x our usual bounty rates, up to $10,000, for all vulnerabilities submitted through February 29th, 2024 when you opt to have Wordfence handle responsible disclosure! Today was another huge step forward in our continuing mission ...