SCG CMS Wordpress

This article is part of the OWASP Secure Configuration Guide.

Back to the OWASP Secure Configuration Guide ToC:
   https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Secure_Configuration_Guide
Back to the OWASP Secure Configuration Guide Project:
   https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Secure_Configuration_Guide

Summary

WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day. WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

Common Misconfigurations

PHP Errors On : Server misconfiguration

Description

Wordpress CMS assumes that the server would have PHP Errors turned off and developers will rely on internal WP_DEBUG feature for Debugging the issues.

How to test

In order to test for PHP Errors setting, one can make a call to known Full path disclosing files. one such file is wp-includes/rss-functions.php (a list of such files was created for specific versions of wordpress example 2.9.2 and 3.0.4 ) if a call is made to http://%site%/wp-includes/rss-functions.php and a error message is obtained in the lines of

Fatal error: Call to undefined function _deprecated_file() in /home/ABCD_XYZ/public_html/wp-includes/rss-functions.php on line 8

Remediation

1. Using .htaccess file in webroot place `php_flag display_errors off`

2. Using php.ini for the server `display_errors off`

Additional Hardening

Misconfiguration 1

Description

%ProductName% allows unauthorized attacker to list all users of the system ...

// Detailed description of the impact. Is it enabled by default? Vulnerable versions.

How to test

In order to test for %Misconfiguration_1%, one should ...

// Proof-of-concept here. Please include the screenshots and widely known tools/scanners!

Remediation

Initial/common value of parameter "listUsers" from config.xml is set to "true".

To assess the vulnerability it is enough to change the value to false:

<security>
	<listUsers>false</listUsers>
</security>

Checklist

define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true ); // log to wp-content/debug.log

To be filled in in accordance to the template, some useful links:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress (consider writing only real security risks with good examples)

https://github.com/anantshri/wp-security (extract samples from here. keep them as code sections either for a plugin or for a theme functions.php, .htaccess or nginx config file)