WordPress username enumeration

  1. Web Vulnerabilities
  2. WordPress username enumeration
Description
  • If permalinks are enabled, in many WordPress installations it is possible to enumerate all the WordPress usernames iterating through the author archives. Whenever a post is published, the username or alias is shown as the author. For example, the URL http://site.com/?author=1 will show all the posts from user id 1. Attackers can abuse this functionality to figure out which usernames are available on the site.
Remediation
  • You can use an .htaccess rewrite rule to prevent this disclosure but you should also be sure to use nicknames to avoid disclosing usernames. 
    # Stop WordPress username enumeration vulnerability
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}  ^/$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^/?author=([0-9]*)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yoursite.com/somepage/? [L,R=301]
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