WordPress security audit — deep checks

Run AFTER wp-security-audit covers the basics (sanitize, escape, nonce, capability, SQL prepare, AJAX nopriv, REST permission). This skill catches the second-tier issues that static-analysis tools miss and that a hurried review skips.

When to use this skill

Trigger when the basic audit is clean but the code does any of:

• Calls unserialize, maybe_unserialize on stored or transmitted data.
• Calls wp_remote_*, file_get_contents, curl_*, fopen with a

URL that could be influenced by input.

• Has admin pages or AJAX/REST handlers driven by ?action= GET params

that perform writes.

• Loops $_POST / $_REQUEST keys into update_post_meta,

update_user_meta, wp_update_user, wp_insert_post, or similar.

• Includes/requires a path that contains any input-derived component.
• Sends mail with user-controlled From, Cc, Bcc, or custom headers.
• Extracts uploaded archives (ZipArchive, PharData, tar).
• Compares tokens, hashes, or secrets with == / === instead of

hash_equals.

• Implements its own lock / counter via get_option + update_option.

Audit checks

1. PHP object injection via unserialize

// HIGH — attacker-controlled serialized payload → gadget chains
$data = unserialize( $_POST['payload'] );

Even with [ 'allowed_classes' => false ], prefer json_decode for network/user input. maybe_unserialize on get_option is generally safe (admin wrote it), but flag it on user-meta keys that any user can write (custom registration forms, profile editors).

Phar deserialization: on PHP < 8.0, filesystem functions (file_exists, is_dir, filesize, fopen, etc.) on a path using the phar:// stream wrapper would auto-unserialize the archive's metadata, enabling object-injection gadget chains. PHP 8.0+ removed this auto-unserialization (RFC: phar_stop_autoloading_metadata) — the risk now requires an explicit Phar::getMetadata() call. So the finding severity depends on the deployment's minimum PHP version:

• PHP 7.x supported: HIGH if any filesystem function is called with

user-influenced paths. Strip phar:// from input.

• PHP 8.0+ only: still flag explicit Phar::getMetadata() over

user-controlled archives, plus any unserialize() of binary blobs.

Fix: JSON for transport, allowlist classes if unserialize is unavoidable, never accept phar:// from input on PHP 7.x.

2. SSRF in outbound requests

// HIGH — internal network probe / cloud metadata exfil
$response = wp_remote_get( $_POST['webhook_url'] );

Preferred defense — host allowlist. If the integration only ever talks to a known set of hosts (Stripe, Slack, an internal API), allowlist them:

$url   = esc_url_raw( wp_unslash( $_POST['webhook_url'] ?? '' ) );
$parts = wp_parse_url( $url );

$allowed_hosts = [ 'api.stripe.com', 'hooks.slack.com' ];
if ( empty( $parts['host'] )
     || ! in_array( strtolower( $parts['host'] ), $allowed_hosts, true )
     || ! in_array( $parts['scheme'] ?? '', [ 'https' ], true ) ) {
    wp_die( 'Forbidden host', 403 );
}

$response = wp_remote_post( $url, [
    'timeout'             => 5,
    'redirection'         => 2,
    'reject_unsafe_urls'  => true,
] );

Fallback — generic URL with IP-range filtering. Only use this when allowlisting is impossible (e.g. user-submitted webhook URLs). The naive gethostbyname() check is not enough: it returns a single IPv4 A record, missing AAAA records (IPv6 ::1, fc00::/7), multi-record DNS responses, and post-redirect destinations. A correct generic check needs:

$host = strtolower( wp_parse_url( $url, PHP_URL_HOST ) );

// Reject literal IPs in private/reserved ranges before DNS
if ( filter_var( $host, FILTER_VALIDATE_IP ) ) {
    if ( ! filter_var( $host, FILTER_VALIDATE_IP,
        FILTER_FLAG_NO_PRIV_RANGE | FILTER_FLAG_NO_RES_RANGE ) ) {
        wp_die( 'Forbidden host', 403 );
    }
}

// Resolve ALL records, not just the first A
$records = array_merge(
    dns_get_record( $host, DNS_A )  ?: [],
    dns_get_record( $host, DNS_AAAA ) ?: []
);
foreach ( $records as $r ) {
    $ip = $r['ip'] ?? $r['ipv6'] ?? '';
    if ( ! filter_var( $ip, FILTER_VALIDATE_IP,
        FILTER_FLAG_NO_PRIV_RANGE | FILTER_FLAG_NO_RES_RANGE ) ) {
        wp_die( 'Forbidden host', 403 );
    }
}

$response = wp_remote_get( $url, [
    'timeout'            => 5,
    'redirection'        => 2,
    'reject_unsafe_urls' => true,
] );

Even this is incomplete — DNS rebinding can return safe records to the resolver and unsafe records to the actual fetch. For full protection you need to resolve once, fetch by IP with a Host: header. WordPress's reject_unsafe_urls request arg does some filtering via the http_request_host_is_external / http_request_host_is_allowed filters, but is opt-in and not sufficient on its own.

Flag when:

• No host allowlist when the integration only needs known endpoints.
• gethostbyname()-only check (audit ourselves: this skill's earlier

versions had this same bug — IPv4-only, single-record, no redirect reverification).

• redirection not capped (default follows up to 5 — can chain into

internal services after passing the initial check).

• timeout missing — DoS vector.
• reject_unsafe_urls not set on user-influenced URLs.

3. CSRF on state-changing GET handlers

WP plugins commonly wire admin pages with ?action=delete&id=42 links. These bypass check_admin_referer if the dev only added it to POST handlers.

// HIGH — GET with side effect, no nonce
if ( isset( $_GET['action'] ) && $_GET['action'] === 'delete' ) {
    delete_post( (int) $_GET['id'] );
}

Rule: any handler that writes MUST verify a nonce regardless of HTTP method. Action links must be built with wp_nonce_url( $url, 'delete_post_' . $id ) and verified with check_admin_referer( 'delete_post_' . $id ).

4. Mass assignment

// HIGH — user can set role, status, meta_input, etc.
wp_update_user( $_POST );
wp_insert_post( $_POST );

foreach ( $_POST as $key => $value ) {
    update_user_meta( $user_id, $key, $value );
}

Fix: explicit allowlist of accepted keys. Never spread $_POST / $_REQUEST into a write function whose schema includes privileged fields (role, user_pass, post_status, post_author, meta_input, tax_input).

5. File include / template injection

// HIGH — RCE
include $template_dir . '/' . $_GET['view'] . '.php';
locate_template( $_GET['t'] . '.php' );

Fix: allowlist:

$allowed = [ 'list', 'edit', 'settings' ];
$view    = isset( $_GET['view'] ) && in_array( $_GET['view'], $allowed, true )
    ? $_GET['view'] : 'list';
include $template_dir . '/' . $view . '.php';

Even with sanitize_file_name, .. and null bytes can survive. Only allowlist is safe.

6. Mail header injection

// HIGH — \r\n injection adds Bcc
wp_mail( '[email protected]', 'Hi', $body, "From: " . $_POST['email'] );

Fix: sanitize email + reject CRLF:

$from = sanitize_email( wp_unslash( $_POST['email'] ?? '' ) );
if ( ! $from || preg_match( '/[\r\n]/', $from ) ) {
    wp_die( 'Invalid sender', 400 );
}
wp_mail( '[email protected]', 'Hi', $body, [ 'From: ' . $from ] );

Pass headers as an array, not a concatenated string.

7. ZipSlip / archive extraction

// HIGH — extracted file can escape with ../
$zip->extractTo( $target_dir );

Fix: reject suspicious entries explicitly, then containment-check the resolved path with a trailing separator:

$base_real = realpath( $target_dir );
if ( $base_real === false ) {
    wp_die( 'Invalid target', 500 );
}
$base_with_sep = rtrim( $base_real, DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR ) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR;

for ( $i = 0; $i < $zip->numFiles; $i++ ) {
    $name = $zip->getNameIndex( $i );

    // Reject obvious traversal / absolute / drive prefixes
    if ( $name === false
         || $name === ''
         || strpos( $name, "\0" ) !== false
         || preg_match( '#(^|[/\\\\])\.\.([/\\\\]|$)#', $name )
         || preg_match( '#^([a-zA-Z]:|/|\\\\)#', $name )
    ) {
        wp_die( 'Malicious archive entry', 400 );
    }

    // Resolve intended target. Note: file does not exist yet, so
    // realpath() returns false — we manually normalize and then
    // require it to be inside $base_with_sep (with the trailing
    // separator, so /base does not pass for /base-evil).
    $candidate = $base_with_sep . $name;
    $normalized = $base_with_sep
        . ltrim( str_replace( '\\', '/', $name ), '/' );

    // After normalization, prefix-check against base+sep.
    if ( strncmp( $normalized, $base_with_sep, strlen( $base_with_sep ) ) !== 0 ) {
        wp_die( 'Archive escape attempt', 400 );
    }
}

// Optionally extract entries one at a time with stream filters that
// also reject symlinks (ZipArchive::extractTo does not honor symlinks
// portably; symlink-bearing archives are a separate audit).
$zip->extractTo( $target_dir );

Also: never use `realpath()` for not-yet-existing paths — it returns false and the common fallback $base . '/' . $name is exactly the unvalidated string the attacker controls. Always normalize manually and prefix-check against base + DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.

Reject symlinks, hardlinks, and entries whose archive metadata indicates non-regular file types if your archive format exposes them.

8. Timing-safe comparison

// MEDIUM — timing leak + type juggling
if ( $_GET['token'] == $stored_token ) { /* grant */ }

// '0e123...' == '0e456...' is true (scientific notation)

Fix: if ( hash_equals( $stored_token, (string) $_GET['token'] ) ).

Use for: API keys, password reset tokens, signed URLs, any secret comparison. Not needed for IDs / user-visible values.

9. TOCTOU race on options/meta

// MEDIUM — two simultaneous requests both pass the check
if ( ! get_option( 'myplugin_processing' ) ) {
    update_option( 'myplugin_processing', 1 );
    do_expensive_thing();
    update_option( 'myplugin_processing', 0 );
}

WP options have no atomic CAS. Mitigations:

• Use a transient with a short TTL as a soft lock — not perfect, but

better than the above.

• For real exclusion: $wpdb->query( "SELECT GET_LOCK('myplugin', 0)" )

and RELEASE_LOCK. MySQL-level, atomic.

• If correctness matters (billing, idempotency), use a unique-key

insert as the gate: insert fails → another worker is in flight.

Flag the pattern, propose the lock approach. Don't claim certainty about race windows without dynamic testing.

10. Direct file access guard

Top of every PHP file that has side effects on load:

if ( ! defined( 'ABSPATH' ) ) { exit; }

Missing guard is LOW unless the file actually executes work at top-level (most class files are fine). Flag explicitly for files in includes/ or admin/ that do procedural work.

Severity guide

Same as wp-security-audit. Object injection, SSRF on internal network, RCE via include, ZipSlip → HIGH. CSRF on admin GET typically HIGH (any logged-in admin clicking a link). TOCTOU, timing → MEDIUM unless directly exploitable.

Report format

Reuse the format from wp-security-audit. If both skills run, merge findings into a single report grouped by severity, not by skill.

Cross-references

• Run `wp-security-audit` first for the basic checklist

(sanitize, escape, nonce, capability, SQL prepare).

• Run `wp-security-secrets` for hardcoded credentials, weak

randomness in tokens, and password-storage issues — these are adjacent but distinct findings.

What this skill does NOT cover

• Cryptographic protocol correctness (custom JWT, signing schemes).
• Business-logic IDOR beyond capability/ownership checks.
• Third-party dependency CVEs (run composer audit).
• Concurrency analysis beyond surface TOCTOU patterns.
• Server hardening (open_basedir, disable_functions, file perms).

References

• WP Plugin Security Handbook:

https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/security/

• PHP unserialize advisory:

https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.unserialize.php

• Phar metadata RFC (PHP 8.0): https://wiki.php.net/rfc/phar_stop_autoloading_metadata
• WP HTTP API request args: https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_http/request/