Hello bloggers, as you may know WordPress 2.6 released some days ago, with some exciting features which you can see in this video.
However, if you upgraded your WordPress, you need to know about a security hole in this awesome platform ( I think this bug is in the past versions too ). So check this out to learn how to protect your blog from hackers!
The plugins’ directory is not safe! if you search in google for the index of the path where wordpress storage the plugins, it will give you thousand of websites as result, which you can access and check their plugins! Practically, if you want, you could steal information, paid plugins or even steal a blog…
Wordpress Security Hole
As you can see, your blog is not safe. How can you fix this issue? That’s simple!
You need to create a file called index.html and upload it to the Plugins’ folder yourblog/wp-content/plugins/. So, when someone try to load that location, the browser will load the index file and that person will get nothing important.
In the .html file you can write a message linking to your blog. Also, you could redirect that page to your blog… However, it doesn’t matter, the important thing is that your folder will be safe now 
.
Check my html file here 
. You can get a similar one by copying the following code into a html file:
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=”margin-bottom: 0in”><FONT SIZE=6>YOUR-MESSAGE-HERE</FONT></P>
<br/>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=”margin-bottom: 0in”><img src=”YOUR-IMAGE-URL-HERE“/></P>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=”Refresh” CONTENT=”3; URL=YOUR-BLOG-HERE“>
Take care!
Hey! my name is Javier but you can call me Javo, everybody does.
Good post MrJavo. Ive known about this pretty much since i started blogging.
Whenever they try and see my plugins they are greeted with the following message.
`Looking for my plugins tough not showing you`
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Hehe nice one David, but as I saw, there are many people who don’t know about this. I checked some blogs through Google and I could explore its folders
This is how all directory folders work whether its WordPress or not, if you have afolder that you don’t want prying eyes looking at, throw in a simple index.html file.
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Better still, turn off the option in Apache to display folder indexes. If you don’t have control over apache, you should always put an index.htm/html/php/etc file in any folder unless you want people to be able to browse it. Frankly, I’d think that the WordPress dev team would have included an index.htm in all directories with the install.
Hey Joe nice idea about the Apache! And yes, I also think that wordpress should include an index to protect your folders…
Thanks for the tip!
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Like Joe Tech said, turned indexing off on Apache. If you have cPanel, you can click “Index Manager->Public_HTML-> Choose No Indexing and click save. This will add some code to your .htaccess file.
To add the code manually, just add the following in your .htaccess file in the root of your website:
Options All -Indexes
This will prevent prying eyes from seeing into any of your folders. This should be default on any of your websites unless you prefer others to view your folders and files.
Otherwise, you can add an index.html file in all your folders (as already suggested). Many other scripts already include one in all of their folders for you. WordPress is one of only a few of the popular scripts that don’t. Most do….atleast the ones I’ve used.
CallieJos last blog post..Finally a BIGGER Wacom!
Thanks for the heads up on this!
Interesting to know but even if this issue gets fixed the next will come along and cause issues once again!
I guess this is the world of Open Source and Free Software in which we live!
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Hey CallieJo great advice, thanks to contribute on this!
Hey good one Mr Javo!
As CallieJo says putting Options All -Indexes in the .htaccess is a simple solution. I like it because if you do this in the root directory you have protected your whole site, and all folders are protected, even if you missed an index file somewhere..
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You are a diamond
I created two index.html files and dumped them in wp-content and wp-content/plugins folders.
I cannot believe how vulnerable I’ve been
Are there any other major flaws we worpressers should be on the look out for.
Once again thank you soooo much for the blog-saving tip
Sol
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Just restrict access by a robots txt file and secure it by a .htaccess rule…
Yes, this is one of the ways to secure your WordPress blog. There are another few more ways, you can check out from my blog.
or an easy way
RewriteEngine On
Options All -Indexes
Good Post
Thanks
good post mr javo
i am using this index file from long time back
great post- it looks like we started doing this a while ago. but thanks for keeping people informed.
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You should also block your plugin directory in robots.txt so search engines don’t spider your publins.
/Andreas
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Your welcome Mr. Javo
Some people don’t have to worry if their host or their server is already setup with indexing off.
You can email your host or setup your server to turn indexing off for all websites hosted on your server.
If you manage your own server you can try to put an .htaccess file with this in the servers /home directory:
Options All -Indexes
CallieJos last blog post..Finally a BIGGER Wacom!
Thanks a lot for sharing this.
I didn’t know of this hole in wordpress.
I’ve now uploaded a nice squeeze page as an index.html
Daniel
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Thanks Javo for pointing this out and thanks CallieJo for the .htaccess advice. It is working for me !
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Not only to plugins folder, you can also pu the html file inside directories you don’t want people to see.
I posted an additional security checklist a while ago. Check’em out!
Nice post mr.Javo. May i translete this post to my native language on my blog? With a backlink, ofcourse
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