Plugins are the primary components of a WordPress website, aiding in extending and improving functionality. And its heavy usage demands WordPress development companies to focus highly on security during WordPress Plugin development. Otherwise, a plugin can act as an open door for an attacker to come and exploit the site.
You must follow some industry best practices to perform development and plugin customization securely. And further, you will get to know about them all.
What is WordPress Plugin Development?
A WordPress Plugin is a type of software that supports extending the functionality of the WordPress website. For instance, some websites utilize the WhatsApp plugin to allow their end-users to directly share a link or content from the website with their WhatsApp contacts.
A plugin can provide any functionality, from helping you in marketing to providing customer payment assistance. And the process of curating such plugins is known as WordPress Plugin Development. Under this procedure, developers use some programming languages to develop a WordPress-compatible plugin. And then host it over the online repositories.
Further, other developers can access them and plug them into their websites to add new features.
Tips To Focus On While Providing WordPress Plugin Development Services
Whenever you develop a WordPress plugin, consider the following tips for securing it. It will help you improve its reputation, prevent cyber-attacks through it and align with industry standards.
#1: Focus on User Capabilities
User capabilities refer to the permissions provided to a user. While developing a data inputting plugin, create user groups/roles for it. You must define the data type a user must access, delete and modify. It would help you determine an additional security layer, differentiating administrators and average users.
Further, you must also define restrictions for each user group from performing functions. For instance, configure the plugin to provide post-deletion and analytics viewing rights only to the publisher instead of a reader. Thus, you must focus on user roles and permissions while deciding the authorization policies.
#2: Validate and Sanitize Data
A simple rule of security is never to trust data from any source. Whether an administrator inputs data or a public user, always validate it and then only starts its execution. And the same is with WordPress plugins. During the plugin development, ensure to implement of the following data validation policies:
- Check which data fields get received as blank and which are not.
- Cross-verify the input with defined input policies for each field. For instance, the phone number field must be only ten digits.
- Verify that a field requiring quantity is always set above zero.
Example Code:
$untrusted_input = ‘1 malicious string’; // will evaluate to integer 1 during loose comparisons
if ( 1 === $untrusted_input ) { // == would have evaluated to true, but === evaluates to false
echo ‘
Valid data’;
} else {
wp_die( ‘Invalid data’ );
}
You can do something similar to the above code. Validate the input to check whether it aligns with your policies. If not, you can display an invalid data message to the user. As an outcome, your plugin will support the prevention of SQL and code injection attacks.
#3: Prefer Using Database Abstraction
WordPress offers a built-in class to utilize data abstraction. It enables interaction with the database and performing CRUD operations without a direct connection. In addition, it helps to:
- Remove repetitive methods, functions, and programs.
- Effortlessly document the codebase and associated components.
- Impeccably configure the validation and sanitization mechanisms.
Due to it, the attack surface gets reduced, and attackers get prevented from exploiting the WordPress plugin. Moreover, their access to the original database gets eliminated, and the information retains its confidentiality and integrity. Besides, it also leverages to hide the internal plugin functionality and provide a seamless experience to users.
#4: Utilize Nonce
Nonce is an advanced security feature that every plugin should contain. It prevents attackers from utilizing an authenticated token of a user to perform malicious activities. When someone executes an operation, such as publishing, updating, or deleting a post on a WordPress site, a unique link gets created. However, if an attacker generates a similar yet malicious link using a third-party page, leading your browser to perform the unlawful activity.
But, the URL will have a unique hash value by enabling nonce usage. The hash will get authenticated by the WordPress platform before processing the request. As a result, the attacker will get disabled from accessing the hash value, and the user will remain safe.
#5: Use is_admin() Efficiently
During the WordPress plugin development, use the is_admin() method efficiently. It doesn’t help you verify whether the requesting user has administrator permissions. Instead, it only supports checking whether the user is trying to access administrator resources.
Furthermore, it doesn’t help to detect the type of user executing the code. Therefore, you must use it according to the user’s capabilities.
#6: Upgrade With New WordPress Updates
Before you start the development of a WordPress plugin, go through all the new policies and updates released by WordPress. It will help you design relevant plugin architecture and create a compatible codebase. Also, you will learn about the components and libraries to include to minimize the possibility of loopholes.
Furthermore, if you are developing a new plugin version, you will also understand the accurate modifications to perform. Due to it, the WordPress platform will accept the plugin, and users will prefer it over other plugins. Thus, you must constantly update your knowledge about recent upgrades.
#7: Use HTTPS and Tokens
As a WordPress development agency, you must understand the requirement of HTTPS for secure data transmission. If your plugin shares even a bit of sensitive or confidential information, you must configure an HTTPS-based transmission channel to prevent MITM (man-in-the-middle) attack.
Additionally, you can use secure tokens, such as JSON Web Token (JWT), for authentication purposes. The token will attach to the request, and the server will validate it before issuing the resources.
Wrapping Up
WordPress plugins are for extending the functionality of a WordPress website. But while developing them, you must focus on their security, as it can function as a loophole for an attacker. According to security professionals, a plugin must validate and sanitize input and use nonce for URLs and HTTPS for data transfer.
Additionally, you can configure data abstraction and push frequent updates as per new WordPress guidelines to maintain data integrity.