How to use WPScan to Find Security Vulnerability on WordPress Sites?
Millions of websites are powered by WordPress and holding the number one position, with 62% of the market share in the CMS world.
A recent web application vulnerability report by Acunetix shows that around 30% of WordPress sites found vulnerable.
There is plenty of online security scanner to scan your website. However, if you are looking for software to install and scan from your server, then WPScan is your friend. It is useful if your website is on a private network or Intranet where the Internet is not available. Or, want to test multiple sites at multiple times.
WPScan is free software, helps you to identify the security-related problems on your WordPress site. It does several things like:
- Check if the site is using vulnerable WP version
- Check if a theme and plugin is up-to-date or known to be vulnerable
- Check Timthumbs
- Check for configuration backup, DB exports
- Brute force attack
and a lot more…
There is several ways to use WPScan.
- By installing on Linux servers
- Using Docker
- Using pre-installed Linux distro like Kali Linux, BackBox, Pentoo, BlackArch, etc.
- Online version
Using on CentOS
The following are tested on CentOS 7.x.
- Login to CentOS with root
- Update the repository
yum update -y- Install latest Ruby and their dependencies
yum -y install curl gpg gcc gcc-c++ make patch autoconf automake bison libffi-devel libtool patch readline-devel sqlite-devel zlib-devel openssl-devel && gpg --keyserver hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net --recv-keys 409B6B1796C275462A1703113804BB82D39DC0E3 7D2BAF1CF37B13E2069D6956105BD0E739499BDB && curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --ruby
- Install Ruby Nokogiri
yum -y install rubygem-nokogiri
- Reboot the server and then install WPScan using
gemcommand
gem install wpscanIt will take few seconds to install, and once done; you should see something like this.
Done installing documentation for ffi, get_process_mem, mini_portile2, nokogiri, concurrent-ruby, i18n, thread_safe, tzinfo, zeitwerk, activesupport, public_suffix, addressable, opt_parse_validator, ruby-progressbar, ethon, typhoeus, yajl-ruby, sys-proctable, cms_scanner, wpscan after 32 seconds
20 gems installed
WPScan is installed and ready to use now. Execute wpscan and you should see it returns below.
[root@lab ~]# wpscan
One of the following options is required: url, update, help, hh, version
Please use --help/-h for the list of available options.
[root@lab ~]#Here is the output of one of the site’s test.
[root@lab ~]# wpscan --url https://geekflaresg.com
_______________________________________________________________
__ _______ _____
/ / __ / ____|
/ / /| |__) | (___ ___ __ _ _ __ ®
/ / / | ___/ ___ / __|/ _` | '_
/ / | | ____) | (__| (_| | | | |
/ / |_| |_____/ ___|__,_|_| |_|
WordPress Security Scanner by the WPScan Team
Version 3.7.6
Sponsored by Automattic - https://automattic.com/
@_WPScan_, @ethicalhack3r, @erwan_lr, @firefart
_______________________________________________________________
[+] URL: https://geekflaresg.com/
[+] Started: Wed Jan 8 21:14:16 2020
Interesting Finding(s):
[+] https://geekflaresg.com/
| Interesting Entries:
| - Server: nginx
| - X-Cache-Enabled: True
| - Host-Header: 5d77dd967d63c3104bced1db0cace49c
| - X-Proxy-Cache: MISS
| Found By: Headers (Passive Detection)
| Confidence: 100%
[+] https://geekflaresg.com/robots.txt
| Interesting Entries:
| - /wp-admin/
| - /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
| Found By: Robots Txt (Aggressive Detection)
| Confidence: 100%
[+] https://geekflaresg.com/xmlrpc.php
| Found By: Direct Access (Aggressive Detection)
| Confidence: 100%
| References:
| - http://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPC_Pingback_API
| - https://www.rapid7.com/db/modules/auxiliary/scanner/http/wordpress_ghost_scanner
| - https://www.rapid7.com/db/modules/auxiliary/dos/http/wordpress_xmlrpc_dos
| - https://www.rapid7.com/db/modules/auxiliary/scanner/http/wordpress_xmlrpc_login
| - https://www.rapid7.com/db/modules/auxiliary/scanner/http/wordpress_pingback_access
[+] https://geekflaresg.com/readme.html
| Found By: Direct Access (Aggressive Detection)
| Confidence: 100%
[+] https://geekflaresg.com/wp-cron.php
| Found By: Direct Access (Aggressive Detection)
| Confidence: 60%
| References:
| - https://www.iplocation.net/defend-wordpress-from-ddos
| - https://github.com/wpscanteam/wpscan/issues/1299
[+] WordPress version 5.3.2 identified (Latest, released on 2019-12-18).
| Found By: Rss Generator (Passive Detection)
| - https://geekflaresg.com/feed/, https://wordpress.org/?v=5.3.2
| - https://geekflaresg.com/comments/feed/, https://wordpress.org/?v=5.3.2
[+] WordPress theme in use: twentyseventeen
| Location: https://geekflaresg.com/wp-content/themes/twentyseventeen/
| Last Updated: 2019-05-07T00:00:00.000Z
| Readme: https://geekflaresg.com/wp-content/themes/twentyseventeen/README.txt
| [!] The version is out of date, the latest version is 2.2
| Style URL: https://geekflaresg.com/wp-content/themes/twentyseventeen/style.css
| Style Name: Twenty Seventeen
| Style URI: https://wordpress.org/themes/twentyseventeen/
| Description: Twenty Seventeen brings your site to life with header video and immersive featured images. With a fo...
| Author: the WordPress team
| Author URI: https://wordpress.org/
|
| Found By: Urls In Homepage (Passive Detection)
| Confirmed By: Urls In 404 Page (Passive Detection)
|
| Version: 2.1 (80% confidence)
| Found By: Style (Passive Detection)
| - https://geekflaresg.com/wp-content/themes/twentyseventeen/style.css, Match: 'Version: 2.1'
[+] Enumerating All Plugins (via Passive Methods)
[i] No plugins Found.
[+] Enumerating Config Backups (via Passive and Aggressive Methods)
Checking Config Backups - Time: 00:00:01 <===================================================================================================> (21 / 21) 100.00% Time: 00:00:01
[i] No Config Backups Found.
[!] No WPVulnDB API Token given, as a result vulnerability data has not been output.
[!] You can get a free API token with 50 daily requests by registering at https://wpvulndb.com/users/sign_up
[+] Finished: Wed Jan 8 21:14:28 2020
[+] Requests Done: 51
[+] Cached Requests: 7
[+] Data Sent: 9.52 KB
[+] Data Received: 369.97 KB
[+] Memory used: 202.898 MB
[+] Elapsed time: 00:00:12
[root@lab ~]#
Note: if you need vulnerability data in output, then you need to use their API.
If you are interested in testing specific metrics, then check out the help by executing wpscan with --help syntax.
[root@lab ~]# wpscan --hh
_______________________________________________________________
__ _______ _____
/ / __ / ____|
/ / /| |__) | (___ ___ __ _ _ __ ®
/ / / | ___/ ___ / __|/ _` | '_
/ / | | ____) | (__| (_| | | | |
/ / |_| |_____/ ___|__,_|_| |_|
WordPress Security Scanner by the WPScan Team
Version 3.7.6
Sponsored by Automattic - https://automattic.com/
@_WPScan_, @ethicalhack3r, @erwan_lr, @firefart
_______________________________________________________________
Usage: wpscan [options]
--url URL The URL of the blog to scan
Allowed Protocols: http, https
Default Protocol if none provided: http
This option is mandatory unless update or help or hh or version is/are supplied
-h, --help Display the simple help and exit
--hh Display the full help and exit
--version Display the version and exit
--ignore-main-redirect Ignore the main redirect (if any) and scan the target url
-v, --verbose Verbose mode
--[no-]banner Whether or not to display the banner
Default: true
--max-scan-duration SECONDS Abort the scan if it exceeds the time provided in seconds
-o, --output FILE Output to FILE
-f, --format FORMAT Output results in the format supplied
Available choices: cli-no-colour, cli-no-color, cli, json
--detection-mode MODE Default: mixed
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
--scope DOMAINS Comma separated (sub-)domains to consider in scope.
Wildcard(s) allowed in the trd of valid domains, e.g: *.target.tld
Separator to use between the values: ','
--user-agent, --ua VALUE
--headers HEADERS Additional headers to append in requests
Separator to use between the headers: '; '
Examples: 'X-Forwarded-For: 127.0.0.1', 'X-Forwarded-For: 127.0.0.1; Another: aaa'
--vhost VALUE The virtual host (Host header) to use in requests
--random-user-agent, --rua Use a random user-agent for each scan
--user-agents-list FILE-PATH List of agents to use with --random-user-agent
Default: /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.6.3/gems/cms_scanner-0.8.1/app/user_agents.txt
--http-auth login:password
-t, --max-threads VALUE The max threads to use
Default: 5
--throttle MilliSeconds Milliseconds to wait before doing another web request. If used, the max threads will be set to 1.
--request-timeout SECONDS The request timeout in seconds
Default: 60
--connect-timeout SECONDS The connection timeout in seconds
Default: 30
--disable-tls-checks Disables SSL/TLS certificate verification, and downgrade to TLS1.0+ (requires cURL 7.66 for the latter)
--proxy protocol://IP:port Supported protocols depend on the <a href="https://geekflare.com/proxy-with-curl-and-wget/">cURL</a> installed
--proxy-auth login:password
--cookie-string COOKIE Cookie string to use in requests, format: cookie1=value1[; cookie2=value2]
--cookie-jar FILE-PATH File to read and write cookies
Default: /tmp/wpscan/cookie_jar.txt
--cache-ttl TIME_TO_LIVE The cache time to live in seconds
Default: 600
--clear-cache Clear the cache before the scan
--cache-dir PATH Default: /tmp/wpscan/cache
--server SERVER Force the supplied server module to be loaded
Available choices: apache, iis, nginx
--force Do not check if the target is running WordPress
--[no-]update Whether or not to update the Database
--api-token TOKEN The WPVulnDB API Token to display vulnerability data
--wp-content-dir DIR The wp-content directory if custom or not detected, such as "wp-content"
--wp-plugins-dir DIR The plugins directory if custom or not detected, such as "wp-content/plugins"
--interesting-findings-detection MODE Use the supplied mode for the interesting findings detection.
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
--wp-version-all Check all the version locations
--wp-version-detection MODE Use the supplied mode for the WordPress version detection, instead of the global (--detection-mode) mode.
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
--main-theme-detection MODE Use the supplied mode for the Main theme detection, instead of the global (--detection-mode) mode.
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
-e, --enumerate [OPTS] Enumeration Process
Available Choices:
vp Vulnerable plugins
ap All plugins
p Popular plugins
vt Vulnerable themes
at All themes
t Popular themes
tt Timthumbs
cb Config backups
dbe Db exports
u User IDs range. e.g: u1-5
Range separator to use: '-'
Value if no argument supplied: 1-10
m Media IDs range. e.g m1-15
Note: Permalink setting must be set to "Plain" for those to be detected
Range separator to use: '-'
Value if no argument supplied: 1-100
Separator to use between the values: ','
Default: All Plugins, Config Backups
Value if no argument supplied: vp,vt,tt,cb,dbe,u,m
Incompatible choices (only one of each group/s can be used):
- vp, ap, p
- vt, at, t
--exclude-content-based REGEXP_OR_STRING Exclude all responses matching the Regexp (case insensitive) during parts of the enumeration.
Both the headers and body are checked. Regexp delimiters are not required.
--plugins-list LIST List of plugins to enumerate
Examples: 'a1', 'a1,a2,a3', '/tmp/a.txt'
--plugins-detection MODE Use the supplied mode to enumerate Plugins, instead of the global (--detection-mode) mode.
Default: passive
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
--plugins-version-all Check all the plugins version locations according to the choosen mode (--detection-mode, --plugins-detection and --plugins-version-detection)
--plugins-version-detection MODE Use the supplied mode to check plugins versions instead of the --detection-mode or --plugins-detection modes.
Default: mixed
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
--plugins-threshold THRESHOLD Raise an error when the number of detected plugins via known locations reaches the threshold. Set to 0 to ignore the threshold.
Default: 100
--themes-list LIST List of themes to enumerate
Examples: 'a1', 'a1,a2,a3', '/tmp/a.txt'
--themes-detection MODE Use the supplied mode to enumerate Themes, instead of the global (--detection-mode) mode.
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
--themes-version-all Check all the themes version locations according to the choosen mode (--detection-mode, --themes-detection and --themes-version-detection)
--themes-version-detection MODE Use the supplied mode to check themes versions instead of the --detection-mode or --themes-detection modes.
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
--themes-threshold THRESHOLD Raise an error when the number of detected themes via known locations reaches the threshold. Set to 0 to ignore the threshold.
Default: 20
--timthumbs-list FILE-PATH List of timthumbs' location to use
Default: /root/.wpscan/db/timthumbs-v3.txt
--timthumbs-detection MODE Use the supplied mode to enumerate Timthumbs, instead of the global (--detection-mode) mode.
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
--config-backups-list FILE-PATH List of config backups' filenames to use
Default: /root/.wpscan/db/config_backups.txt
--config-backups-detection MODE Use the supplied mode to enumerate Config Backups, instead of the global (--detection-mode) mode.
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
--db-exports-list FILE-PATH List of DB exports' paths to use
Default: /root/.wpscan/db/db_exports.txt
--db-exports-detection MODE Use the supplied mode to enumerate DB Exports, instead of the global (--detection-mode) mode.
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
--medias-detection MODE Use the supplied mode to enumerate Medias, instead of the global (--detection-mode) mode.
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
--users-list LIST List of users to check during the users enumeration from the Login Error Messages
Examples: 'a1', 'a1,a2,a3', '/tmp/a.txt'
--users-detection MODE Use the supplied mode to enumerate Users, instead of the global (--detection-mode) mode.
Available choices: mixed, passive, aggressive
-P, --passwords FILE-PATH List of passwords to use during the password attack.
If no --username/s option supplied, user enumeration will be run.
-U, --usernames LIST List of usernames to use during the password attack.
Examples: 'a1', 'a1,a2,a3', '/tmp/a.txt'
--multicall-max-passwords MAX_PWD Maximum number of passwords to send by request with XMLRPC multicall
Default: 500
--password-attack ATTACK Force the supplied attack to be used rather than automatically determining one.
Available choices: wp-login, xmlrpc, xmlrpc-multicall
--stealthy Alias for --random-user-agent --detection-mode passive --plugins-version-detection passive
[root@lab ~]#
Using WPScan on Kali Linux
The beauty of using Kali Linux is you don’t have to install anything. WPScan is pre-installed.
Let’s find out how to run the scanner.
- Login into Kali Linux with root and open terminal
- Run the scan using
wpscancommand
wpscan --url https://mysite.comUsing Docker
A Docker fan?
Why not, it is easy to get it started. Ensure you have Docker installed.
- Pull WPScan docker image
docker pull wpscanteam/wpscan- Once pulled, run it like below.
docker run -it --rm wpscanteam/wpscan --url https://example.comEasy?
WPScan powered Online Scanner
You can leverage the following tools powered by WPScan.
Geekflare
Geekflare WordPress Security Scanner let you quickly find out if given WordPress site is having vulnerable core version, theme, plugin, etc.
On top of WPScan metrics, it also checks the following.
- Is the admin console exposed?
- If considered safe by Google
- Accessible over HTTPS
- If front-end JavaScript libraries are vulnerable
You don’t need to register an account; you can run the test on-demand in FREE.
Pentest-Tools
A tool by Pentest-Tools lets you test the WP site on-demand and produce the report.
What’s next?
Well done! If your site is not vulnerable. However, if it does, then work on those risk items. If you are not sure how to mitigate them, then take professional help.
-
Chandan KumarAuthorAs the founder of Geekflare, I’ve helped millions to excel in the digital realm. Passionate about technology, I’m on a mission to explore the world and amplify growth for professionals and businesses alike.
