{"id":56218,"date":"2011-09-02T10:01:52","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T14:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wpmu.org\/?p=56218"},"modified":"2011-09-05T14:41:52","modified_gmt":"2011-09-05T18:41:52","slug":"how-to-protect-your-wordpress-site-as-hackers-exploit-timthumb-security-hole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/how-to-protect-your-wordpress-site-as-hackers-exploit-timthumb-security-hole\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Protect Your WordPress Site as Hackers Exploit TimThumb Security Hole"},"content":{"rendered":"

A month ago we told you about a serious security whole<\/a> in popular image manipulation script, TimThumb.<\/p>\n

Used by hundreds of WordPress themes this was a particularly far-reaching exploit that opened up many sites to hackers who could gain entry and do pretty much what they wanted.<\/p>\n

Thanks (or should that be “praise be”?) to the quick actions of Mark Maunder\u00a0and the subsequent collaboration between him and TimThumb’s original author Ben Gillbanks<\/a>, the hole has been patched up and the latest version of TimThumb<\/a> is much more secure.<\/p>\n

However, themes must then be updated with the new version, or patched accordingly. Otherwise hackers looking for this exploit could get in to your site – and guess what? It’s happening.<\/p>\n

This week a WPMU DEV<\/a> member posted on the forum;<\/p>\n

Sigh. I forgot to check one of my sites, and wouldn’t you know it? It’s the one that got hacked. I’m running a site that has TimThumb and it’s been hacked.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bad times :(<\/p>\n

In fact, Mark has a very insightful post showing just what hackers are capable of when they exploit this hole. In short, they can do almost anything<\/strong> with your web site.<\/p>\n

Protecting yourself<\/h2>\n

So how do you know you haven’t missed a copy of TimThumb somewhere and shown hackers a wide open door?<\/p>\n

Well, since August 14 I’ve received over 1,400 e-mails informing me that hackers were attempting to hack into my site using the TimThumb exploit.<\/p>\n

How?<\/p>\n

Using the excellent WordPress Firewall<\/a>\u00a0plugin. This excellent piece of kit automatically detects attacks and blocks them<\/strong>, sending you an e-mail each time. If the guy quoted above had been using the plugin he never would have been hacked!<\/p>\n

In once case, I’ve received over 1,000 of these e-mails on the\u00a0same day<\/strong>! It was only after I blocked the IP address of the attacker (included in the e-mail) that the attacks ceased.<\/p>\n

What are you waiting for? Protect yourself now!<\/p>\n

Got any other tips for securing WordPress? Let us know in the comments or contact us<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> Via WordPress Tavern<\/a> I’ve learned that a new plugin allows you to scan your WordPress site for the TimThumb vulnerability<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A month ago we told you about a serious security whole in popular image manipulation script, TimThumb. Used by hundreds of WordPress themes this was a particularly far-reaching exploit that opened up many sites to hackers who could gain entry and do pretty much what they wanted. Thanks (or should that be “praise be”?) to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6262,"featured_media":205543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"blog_reading_time":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_tutorials_categories":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10810,1234],"tutorials_categories":[],"class_list":["post-56218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plugins","tag-wordpress-security","tag-thumbnails"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56218"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204398,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56218\/revisions\/204398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56218"},{"taxonomy":"tutorials_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tutorials_categories?post=56218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}