Updates on CyberSecurity, WordPress and what we're cooking in the lab today.

I downloaded my first copy of BackTrack when I was 13. I had no idea what I was doing, or how to use it, but I knew that I was hooked. I’ve been fascinated with technology since I was a kid, so the idea that I could interact with that technology in new and unexpected ways was exciting. I followed my passion for technology into my adult life, but had always played it relatively safe. I got into satellite and other RF communications, then found myself working various IT roles. I worked my way up to an admin role for a hosting provider, decided it wasn’t for me, and found myself back where I originally started: information security. I began pursuing a career in InfoSec and rediscovered my passion for red team work, but felt disconnected from the community. I didn’t feel like I had the talent or experience required to get involved in any hackerspaces, and was holding myself back from interacting with other people like myself. This is a story of how I overcame that by doing something I’ve always wanted to do, but never had the social courage to take on: attend a security conference, and involve myself in a community that I’ve always admired from afar....read more

Considering the amount of malicious activity that takes place on the internet, it's no surprise that successful attacks on WordPress sites are launched across a wide variety of vectors. Whether outdated plugin code is to blame, or password reuse, or any number of other security flaws, no site owner sets out to introduce a vulnerability into their environment. Ultimately any security issue begins with a mistake, and while mistakes are forgivable there's still risk involved if they're not discovered and remedied....read more

In August, most of our team attended DefCon, a hacker conference in Las Vegas attended by tens of thousands of security professionals. All of us work remotely, so it is always really special to spend time together as a team....read more

Last week's article covering the decision to distrust Symantec-issued TLS certificates generated a great response from our readers. One common question we received, and one that pops up just about any time SSL/TLS comes up, is how to determine when a site does and does not need such a certificate. Spoiler: Your site should probably have a TLS certificate....read more

This is a final reminder that legacy TLS certificates issued by Symantec, including those issued by authorities like Thawte, Geotrust, and RapidSSL which used Symantec as a central authority, will be distrusted by both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox beginning in October. Apple products have partially distrusted these certificates and plan to also distrust the full set of certificates at some point in Fall 2018. Digicert has acquired the Certificate Authority (CA) and its infrastructure, and is issuing free replacement certificates for all affected customers. If you have already replaced your certificate, no action is needed....read more

In an advisory published yesterday, Mozilla disclosed the presence of nine security flaws in Firefox 61 which have been patched in the latest release of the browser. Some of the bugs are severe, but at this time do not appear to be receiving attacks in the wild. To protect yourself as a Firefox user, ensure that you have updated Firefox to the latest version as soon as possible. To do this, click the 'Firefox' menu and 'About Firefox'. The browser will check for an update automatically and will download the update if available. You will then be prompted to 'Restart to update Firefox'...read more

A critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability has been patched in the latest release of Duplicator, a WordPress backup and migration plugin with millions of downloads. In their public disclosure of this flaw, Synacktiv detailed its scope and severity, and provided a viable proof of concept exploit for the security community. In this post we'll take a look at the basics of the vulnerability, what was patched, and what you can do if you think your site's at risk....read more

Yesterday, the popular WordPress plugin Ninja Forms released version 3.3.14, which disclosed and patched two security issues present in the plugin. Upon review of these issues we've determined their severity to be moderately low, however due to the plugin's wide userbase of more than a million active installs we've elected to provide a detailed exploration of exactly what these vulnerabilities are and what risks they do pose if left unpatched. As usual, we recommend updating vulnerable versions of the plugin as soon as possible, despite the relatively low risk....read more

This year we've attended and sponsored quite a few WordCamps, and have had members of our team speak at some as well. If you haven’t attended one recently we highly recommend it. They're a great opportunity to learn and connect with other members of the WordPress community....read more

This year we have been very focused on the needs of agencies and other organizations with lots of sites to protect. We’ve spoken with many of you and have a clear picture of what we can do to make Wordfence work even better for you....read more