1y ago

Backdoor slipped into multiple WordPress plugins in ongoing supply-chain attack

arstechnica.com

Cybersecurity @sh.itjust.works

BrikoX @lemmy.zip

1y ago

Backdoor slipped into multiple WordPress plugins in ongoing supply-chain attack

arstechnica.com /security/2024/06/supply-chain-attack-on-wordpress-plugins-affects-as-many-as-36000-sites/

37 comments

Representatives for developers of the remaining three plugins couldn’t be reached because they provided no contact information on their sites.
You're asking for trouble if you're using such random plugins on production sites.
- oh boy, the average wordpress site has like 30 plugins and the top bar is getting cluttered with so many plugin upsells that it fills the whole screen. There's a huge industry of people making wordpress sites who shouldn't.
  It's quite frustrating to be asked as a dev to "fix" people's site as my usual response is "shut it off and redo it well".
  
  It's really a shame because by now WordPress itself actually works quite well. Sure, it's fueled by unspeakably ugly spaghetti code. But at least it's unspeakably ugly spaghetti code that works and receives regular automatic updates.
  And other than putting up a verification program I don't see what they could do to improve the plugin situation.
  
  There’s a huge industry of people making wordpress sites who shouldn’t.
  And this is why I hate the state of the whole hacking scene and that now nation states are also carrying out en masse attacks. Everyone should be free to make a site on Wordpress or whatever. If they can't, that's how we get everyone on like 3 corporate platforms like Facebook.
  
  Funnily enough, I was hearing this from developers in the early 2010s when I was just starting my career (IT adjacent, but not a developer).
People still use Wordpress? lol
- Its convenient. Not everyone wants to waste their life centering divs you know
  
  Right, because the only alternative to using spaghetti old code is making your own, not using one of the many actively maintained free software.
  https://ghost.org/
  https://bearblog.dev/
  https://writefreely.org/
  Among many others you'd easily find if you give up on the hivemind of taking the most popular approach.
  
  As if wordpress would be the only CMS out there.
- Laziest common response to things like this. People still use Windows? People still use cars? WordPress is insanely popular and there's no indication that's going to change. Not even after you've chosem to signal to all of us here that you don't use it. Good for you, though!
- Over the past 4 years WordPress usage has grown from 35% to 43.4% ~ W3 Techs
  As much as I hate so much about WordPress, yes it is the most used CMS. Period. Your comment is just ignorant.
- What would you use instead?
  
  Something that gets built on my machine and pushed up to the site and doesn’t allow third party code to execute on the backend.
  It really depends on what the website is.
  If you have a use case, I can be more detailed.
  
  Wordpress does a lot of things. You need to specify which things you want to do in order to narrow down a replacement. For example:
  static site? - Hugo, Jekyll, etc - just generates regular HTML
  personal cloud? - NextCloud/OwnCloud
  ecommerce? - consider nopCommerce or OpenCard
  The more you can narrow your requirements, the easier it will be to find a secure solution.

37 comments