The WordPress website is made up of files. As an administrator, it is very important to know all the changes that have taken place in the files. Unauthorized file changes may damage the website, change behavior, or be a symptom of hacker attacks. If you continue to keep information about file changes on the WordPress website, you can easily do the following: Track developer changes on the web site. When a problem occurs, you can easily solve the problem. Expose sensitive data to the remaining database and source code files of malicious hackers. Identify which files were changed when hackers invaded the website, and where the malicious code was injected. To obtain information about all file changes on the WordPress website, please use the file Monitoring needs to be configured. This article introduces: The
How does file integrity monitoring work important reasons how does file integrity monitoring plug-in work how does file integrity monitoring work? File integrity monitoring is a method for checking whether files in the system have changed. This process creates hash values in all individual files, and then compares two different hashes of the same file imported at different times. Just think like a fingerprint If the hash matches, the file is not changed. Otherwise, the file has changed. If there is a new hash in the system, the file has been added to the system. The
The process of performing file integrity monitoring checks is often referred to as searching for file changes or monitoring file changes. The importance of file integrity monitoring on WordPress website file integrity monitoring is very important on WordPress website. Whether malicious or not, you can quickly respond to file changes. For example, file integrity monitoring can prevent unexpected file changes to newly installed plug-ins or themes and easily identify the cause of the problem. It’s easy to think that you only need a security and firewall plug-in, but this oversimplifies the process of maintaining the security of the WordPress website. A holistic approach to WordPress security. At a minimum, do the following: The
To prevent attacks, installing the WordPress firewall always records the latest software, plug-ins, themes, and all user changes (WordPress activity logs) that occur on the WordPress core web site. Allow users to use strong passwords and enable dual authentication. Word press file integrity monitor plug-in installation find location and file change determine that files consist of multiple subdirectories of the word press web site. Some file changes are expected, but some file changes are not. Let’s look at a few examples. The
Change: \/wp-content\/uploads\/ – WordPress saves non executable files (such as image media files) in this directory. Therefore, changes to the \/wp content\/uploads\/ directory usually do not need to be worried. Warning about all changes in this directory may be too high and result in incorrect warnings. In fact, most file integrity monitoring plug-ins ignore media files, such as JPG, JPEG, PNG, PDF, etc\/ WP content\/cache\/ (depending on site configuration) – if you use the cache plug-in, you can view activity in the \/wp content\/cache\/ folder and its subdirectories. Some files may be legal executables. By default, good file change plug-ins exclude \/wp content \/ cache\/ subfolders. Otherwise, consider excluding directories from file change scanning. The
\/WP content \/ plugins \/ – the location where the files of the installed plug-ins are stored. Small horn
If you install, update, or remove logins, estimate the changes here. Otherwise, it must remain unchanged\/ WP content \/ themes \/ – this directory is similar to the \/plugins\/ directory except for topics. There should be no file changes in this directory unless you change the site theme. WordPress root directory – this is a very important directory. Unless you or the server administrator modify (do not modify the word press core code), you should carefully investigate the file changes here. In general, the WordPress root directory must remain unchanged unless the WordPress kernel is updated. The
Word press core file – unless you are an advanced user with appropriate reasons for a very specific purpose, you must not manually edit the word press core file. For everyone else, the WordPress core file can only be changed when WordPress is updated. What does file change mean on the WordPress website? So what is the profile change on the WordPress website? The change can be any of the following: Modifying an existing file deleting deleting an existing file after detecting the creation of a new file or the change of an attached file, how do you know the reason and whether it is legal? Although there is no correct answer in all cases, some common reasons for file changes include: The
Harmless operation and general development and management activities – WordPress update, plug-in change, theme change, content upload and development operation may lead to file change. So if you know these changes are happening, you can easily review the file change search results. Plug in activity – some plug-ins generate file changes. Typically, caching and backup plug-ins create their own files on the web site. Some security plug-ins are. You can also modify configuration files, such as htaccess. Familiar with the behavior of plug-ins, you can easily decide which changes are reasonable and which are not. The
Developer or administrator error – a developer or administrator can leave other types of files that contain source code, backups, or sensitive information. These files can be the source of data leakage, and attackers can use them to learn the settings of the website and possible security defects. Malicious activity – after an attacker visits the WordPress website, he can insert malicious programs, upload or create executable files to change files and perform malicious activities. How to improve WordPress security through file integrity monitoring two types of WordPress security are handled through file integrity monitoring: active security and post event security. Active security involves resolving potential problems before they are compromised. After the fact, security is accompanied by the response to hacker attacks. The
Ex post facto response may have negative significance for some people, but effective ex post response security may be very helpful to alleviate the degree of security violations. By monitoring file integrity, it is assumed that the pre implementation security example 1 developer edits the PHP file without closing the text editor properly. This leaves the swap file (extension.Swp). Similarly, the previous PHP file will be. Suppose you save it as a bak file. In both cases, it doesn’t work like a PHP file, so hackers can the file. Through file integrity monitoring, such problems can be actively detected. The
Implementation example 2 the insecure location of the database administrator at the site. If the SQL database backup is retained, an attacker can find and it. This also happens when using the backup plug-in. Some backup plug-ins move backups from site to
Stay local. Attackers use tools to automatically guess and the path of backup files. The file integrity monitoring solution receives alerts for these issues. Therefore, to take the initiative to take files offline, please reconfigure the server and create new policies for the team to avoid the danger of the website (even if it is not intentional). Ex post security example 1 through file integrity monitoring administrators will receive warnings about changes to WordPress web site files, although they have not been updated recently. When investigating, the administrator is the header. Look for malicious scripts in PHP files. In addition, you can see that anonymous FTP write access is enabled. Administrators can delete damaged files, restore original theme files, and modify FTP server configuration. The implementation example 2 file integrity monitoring plug-in has not changed the theme recently, but 404 in the theme directory. Notify the administrator that the PHP file has changed. In forency, the administrator is 404. Identify the background script in the PHP file. Administrators can analyze web server logs and WordPress audit logs and find that WordPress has created new users in WordPress, and the vulnerability has been maliciously exploited by old plug-ins. By studying alerts and logs, administrators can know the source of hackers, completely recover from hackers and fix security vulnerabilities. File integrity monitoring plug-in for WordPress website now that you know that file integrity monitoring can help improve the management, troubleshooting and security of WordPress website, you want to know how to implement it on the website. Install the WordPress file integrity monitoring plug-in. Most word press security plug-ins perform file integrity monitoring, but the main focus is to strengthen security, such as firewalls. For file integrity monitoring, find the special plug-in that performs this operation now. It is recommended that you monitor web site file changes. It is a special single scope plug-in, very light, easy to configure, and has some unique functions. For example: smart technology that does not report false positives – when installing new plug-ins or updating the WordPress kernel, you do not want the administrator to see a false positive notification overflow. This could easily lead to a Wolff situation. The site file change monitoring plug-in can uniquely identify the changes caused by the WordPress core update, which can install, update and remove plug-ins and themes, and reduce the possibility of error alerts. Self generated source hash table – unlike other plug-ins, the site file change monitor plug-in generates a self generated hash table. Therefore, you can detect file changes from all installed themes and plug-ins, and even custom themes and custom code. In addition, when a new word press update is published, it does not rely on the vendor to update the source hash for comparison. In addition to the above, the plug-in is also multi site compatible and fully configurable. If the WordPress website detects file changes, it will send an email notification.
