{"id":3489315,"date":"2026-04-14T18:31:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T18:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/14\/someone-planted-backdoors-in-dozens-of-wordpress-plug-ins-used-in-thousands-of-websites\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T18:31:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T18:31:34","slug":"someone-planted-backdoors-in-dozens-of-wordpress-plug-ins-used-in-thousands-of-websites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/14\/someone-planted-backdoors-in-dozens-of-wordpress-plug-ins-used-in-thousands-of-websites\/","title":{"rendered":"Someone planted backdoors in dozens of WordPress plug-ins used in thousands of websites"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/someone-planted-backdoors-in-dozens-of-wordpress-plug-ins-used-in-thousands-of-websites.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dozens of plug-ins for the widely used open source web blogging software WordPress are now offline after a backdoor was discovered in them, used to push malicious code to any website that relied on the plug-ins. The backdoor was discovered after a new corporate owner bought these plug-ins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anchor Hosting founder Austin Ginder sounded the alarm in a blog post last week describing a supply chain attack on a WordPress plug-in maker called Essential Plugin. Ginder said someone last year bought Essential Plugin and the backdoor was soon added to the plug-ins\u2019 source code. The backdoor sat dormant until earlier this month when it activated and began distributing malicious code to any website with the plug-ins installed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Essential Plugin says on its website that it has over 400,000 plug-in installs and more than 15,000 customers. WordPress\u2019 plug-in install page says the affected plug-ins are in over 20,000 active WordPress installations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Plug-ins allow owners of WordPress-based websites to extend the site\u2019s functionality, but in doing so grant the plug-ins access to their installations, which can open these websites to malicious extensions and potential compromise. But Ginder warned that WordPress users are not notified of any plug-ins\u2019 change in ownership, exposing users to potential takeover attacks by their new owners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Ginder, this is the second hijack of a WordPress plug-in discovered in as many weeks. Security researchers have long warned of the risks of malicious actors buying software and changing its code in order to compromise a large number of computers around the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the plug-ins have been removed from WordPress\u2019 directory and now list their closure as \u201cpermanent,\u201d Ginder warned that WordPress owners should check if they still have one of the malicious plug-ins installed and remove it. Ginder has a list of the affected plug-ins in the blog post.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Representatives for Essential Plug-in did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/someone-planted-backdoors-in-dozens-of-wordpress-plug-ins-used-in-thousands-of-websites.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dozens of plug-ins for the widely used open source web blogging software WordPress are now offline after a backdoor was discovered in them, used to push malicious code to any website that relied on the plug-ins. The backdoor was discovered after a new corporate owner bought these plug-ins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anchor Hosting founder Austin Ginder sounded the alarm in a blog post last week describing a supply chain attack on a WordPress plug-in maker called Essential Plugin. Ginder said someone last year bought Essential Plugin and the backdoor was soon added to the plug-ins\u2019 source code. The backdoor sat dormant until earlier this month when it activated and began distributing malicious code to any website with the plug-ins installed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Essential Plugin says on its website that it has over 400,000 plug-in installs and more than 15,000 customers. WordPress\u2019 plug-in install page says the affected plug-ins are in over 20,000 active WordPress installations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Plug-ins allow owners of WordPress-based websites to extend the site\u2019s functionality, but in doing so grant the plug-ins access to their installations, which can open these websites to malicious extensions and potential compromise. But Ginder warned that WordPress users are not notified of any plug-ins\u2019 change in ownership, exposing users to potential takeover attacks by their new owners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Ginder, this is the second hijack of a WordPress plug-in discovered in as many weeks. Security researchers have long warned of the risks of malicious actors buying software and changing its code in order to compromise a large number of computers around the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the plug-ins have been removed from WordPress\u2019 directory and now list their closure as \u201cpermanent,\u201d Ginder warned that WordPress owners should check if they still have one of the malicious plug-ins installed and remove it. Ginder has a list of the affected plug-ins in the blog post.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Representatives for Essential Plug-in did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3489316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3489315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3489315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3489316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3489315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3489315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3489315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}