Wordpress

WordPress :: xmlrpc.php Attack!

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WordPress is the most targeted CMS nowadays and needs to be updated regularly. Recently I have seen attacks on wordpress xmlrpc.php using POST requests and the attack is large enough to take down / freeze the server.

The top or ps aufxw shows most of the xmlrpc.php requests as below :

==========
linuxbabu 4414 1.3 0.4 85512 35544 ? R 20:57 0:00 | \_ /usr/bin/php /home/linuxbabu/public_html/wordpress/xmlrpc.php
nobody 3876 0.0 0.1 25936 10852 ? S 20:52 0:00 \_ /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
linuxbabu 4413 1.3 0.4 85512 35672 ? R 20:57 0:00 | \_ /usr/bin/php /home/linuxbabu/public_html/wordpress/xmlrpc.php
nobody 3877 0.0 0.1 25936 10852 ? S 20:52 0:00 \_ /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
linuxbabu 4418 1.3 0.3 82936 33472 ? R 20:57 0:00 | \_ /usr/bin/php /home/linuxbabu/public_html/wordpress/xmlrpc.php
nobody 3878 0.0 0.1 25936 10764 ? S 20:52 0:00 \_ /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL
linuxbabu 4381 1.3 0.5 91580 42368 ? R 20:56 0:01 | \_ /usr/bin/php /home/linuxbabu/public_html/wordpress/xmlrpc.php
nobody 3879 0.0 0.1 25936 10768 ? S 20:52 0:00 \_ /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL

89.248.168.164 - - [30/Jul/2014:16:51:27 -0500] "POST /xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 200 370 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible: MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)"
89.248.174.101 - - [30/Jul/2014:17:03:11 -0500] "POST /xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 200 370 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible: MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)"
89.248.168.164 - - [30/Jul/2014:17:03:09 -0500] "POST /xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 200 370 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible: MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)"
89.248.168.164 - - [30/Jul/2014:17:06:38 -0500] "POST /xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 200 370 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible: MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)"
89.248.174.101 - - [30/Jul/2014:17:09:30 -0500] "POST /xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 200 370 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible: MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)"
89.248.174.101 - - [30/Jul/2014:17:16:27 -0500] "POST /xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 200 370 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible: MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)"
89.248.168.164 - - [30/Jul/2014:17:16:26 -0500] "POST /xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 200 370 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible: MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)"
89.248.174.101 - - [30/Jul/2014:17:35:03 -0500] "POST /xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 200 370 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible: MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)"
89.248.168.164 - - [30/Jul/2014:17:37:30 -0500] "POST /xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 200 370 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible: MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)
==========

First thing you would think is why not delete xmlrpc.php, NO that will generate 404 error and all attack will process the 404 page that too wont help reduce the load.

Here is a quick way to get control of the server :

Add below to .htaccess :

#redirect xmlrpc.php attack to attacking servers
Redirect 301 /xmlrpc.php http://127.0.0.1

You would see a drastic load change and load back to normal and get back your smile 🙂

wp-cron.php – High CPU usage

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What is wp-cron.php ?

This file is a PHP script which runs all the automated tasks that let WordPress do all it’s wonderful tricks. Some examples include:

 

  • Posting content when it is scheduled to be posted at specific times
  • Check all pending comments for spam (if you have plugins like Akismet running)
  • Send emails (i.e. if you have the option enabled where you get emailed whenever a comment is posted, this script handles the email)

Basically wp-cron.php is the automatic part of WordPress.

WP-Cron.php is a very common cause of high CPU loads. Disabling WP-Cron can drastically reduce CPU-load and prevent the chances your account is suspended due to exceeding your resources.

You can disable WP-Cron by editing your wp-config.php and adding the following line;

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', 'true');

Create a cron job and run wp-cron.php every hour or two using the following command:

wget -O /dev/null http://www.example.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron

OR (if wget is disabled) :

cd /home/cpanel_user/public_html; php -q wp-cron.php

🙂