Are you worried about hackers attacking your website?
Cross-site scripting, also called XSS, is one of the most common attacks on WordPress sites. Hackers find vulnerabilities on your site and use them to steal information and misuse your website.
The worst part is that if you don’t fix it right away, these hacks could cause more serious damage, which is very difficult to recover from.
You can prevent these attacks by installing a firewall on your WordPress site .
If your website is already under attack, we’ll show you how to fix it right away in simple, beginner-friendly language. We’ll keep the cybersecurity jargon to a minimum in this tutorial. We’ll also show you how to prevent future attacks.
First, let’s quickly understand what happens in an XSS attack so you’re better equipped to handle it.
What is an XSS attack in WordPress?
XSS stands for Cross Site Scripting, which is a type of injection attack where hackers inject malicious scripts into a website.
These scripts are disguised as good code on a trusted website. Then, when a user lands on this website, their browser executes all the code, including the malicious script, because it thinks these are trusted instructions.
In simpler terms, imagine you are a spy and you have just received an official email from the government about a top-secret mission. It contains all the instructions that you must follow to the letter.
What you don’t know is that someone intercepted that email and added some more instructions of their own. The government has no idea about it and you don’t bother to double-check because you trust the source.
Some things don’t make sense, czech republic phone number library but you are trained to obey all orders and accomplish your mission.
In this scenario,
the government is your website 6 best hubSpot crm integrations for wordpress websites in 2024 and the spy is the user’s browser. The browser follows your website’s instructions and cannot differentiate between good and bad scripts.
These scripts are usually in Javascript, one of the most popular and widely used programming languages. However, these attacks can take place using any client-side language.
Now, there are many ways to carry out an XSS attack. One way is to send a link to unsuspecting users to click on. Once they click on it, the attack can possibly do one or more of the following things:
- Redirect users to a malicious site
- Capture user keystrokes
- Execute web browser-based exploits
- Stealing information from the cookies of the user logged into an account
If the hacker is able to steal the cookie information, they can completely compromise the user’s account. For example, if you are logged into your website’s wp-admin panel, the hacker can steal your credentials and log in to your site.
What you need to do to prevent these attacks is to make sure that all user data is properly validated and sanitized before it enters your website. This way, no user input can be malicious Javascript code. Also, you need to make sure that there are no XSS vulnerabilities on your site that could allow a hacker to attack.
We’ve barely scratched the surface of XSS attacks, but we hope you have a decent understanding of how an XSS attack works in WordPress. If you suspect your site has been hacked, find list follow our step-by-step tutorial.
How to Find and Fix an XSS Attack in WordPress
To find any malware or hacks on your website, you will need to perform a deep scan of your entire website, including its files and database.
We will use Sucuri to scan and clean your hacked site. Sucuri offers you a robust security setup that includes a firewall, malware scanner, and malware cleaner.
Sucuri offers a free malware scanner that you can install on your WordPress site by accessing the Plugins » Add New tab .
We recommend using the premium server-side scanner. This will turn your website upside down to find any traces of malware.
In addition, here are some of its highlights:
- Monitor spam and malicious scripts
- Checking for hidden backdoors created by hackers
- Detects changes made to DNS (Domain Name System) and SSL
- Checking blacklists in search engines and other authorities
- Monitor website uptime
- Instant alerts via email, SMS, Slack and RSS
For more details, read our Sucuri Review .
Sucuri is priced at $199.99 per year. If that’s out of your budget, you can try other security plugins. Check out our list: 9 Best WordPress Security Plugins Compared .
When selecting a security plugin, make sure it offers you all the cybersecurity features you need to find and fix malware infections and protect your website.
Step 1: Scan your website
Here you will need to connect your website by entering your FTP credentials. If you do not know your FTP credentials, you can request them from your web hosting provider.
Once your site is online, Sucuri will automatically perform a thorough scan of your website. Once done, it will show you a detailed report in the “My Sites” tab .
You can now click on the “Details ” button next to the warning message. The monitoring page will open , where you can see the details of the hack or infection.
Step 2: Request a malware cleanup
On the Monitoring page , you can see what type of malware has infected your site. Sucuri adds a rating to indicate the risk level. So if it’s a critical or high risk, you know you need to fix it right away. Additionally, it will also show you if your site has been blacklisted by any search engines.