# Behind the Code: Identifying Zero-Day Exploits in WordPress
## 5 Exploitation Phase Analysis and Assessment
Conducting thorough DAST requires significant computational resources and expertise. Small organizations or individual developers may lack the resources to implement comprehensive security testing, leading to potential gaps in vulnerability detection. Offering cloud-based DAST solutions that can be scaled according to the organization's needs can help mitigate resource constraints and provide access to robust security testing capabilities. In light of these challenges, future work should focus on several key areas to enhance the DAST approach. Developing more advanced automation techniques can help scale the DAST approach to handle larger and more complex applications. This includes automated test case generation, execution, and result analysis. Integrating DAST tools with continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines can facilitate continuous security testing, ensuring that vulnerabilities are identified and addressed promptly as part of the development process. Enhancing collaboration between security experts and developers can lead to better integration of security practices into the development lifecycle, reducing the overall security risk. Although the current method does not use machine learning, exploring advanced heuristics and AI techniques can help improve the accuracy and efficiency of DAST tools. These technologies can assist in identifying patterns and anomalies that might indicate vulnerabilities. Developing comprehensive threat models that consider the entire ecosystem of a web application can improve the coverage and effectiveness of security testing. This includes understanding potential attack vectors and their impact on different components of the application. Finally, educating users on the importance of regular updates and security best practices can mitigate risks associated with outdated or poorly configured plugins. Developing user-friendly guidelines and tools for maintaining secure configurations can enhance overall security. By addressing these challenges and pursuing the proposed future work, we can enhance the effectiveness and reliability of DAST for identifying zero-day vulnerabilities in WordPress plugins, thereby improving the overall security posture of web applications. ## 7 Conclusions

Dynamic application security testing (DAST) operates by interacting with a running application, sending various inputs, and observing the application's responses. This real-time interaction allows DAST tools to detect security flaws that might not be apparent through static code analysis alone. By submitting a wide range of input data, DAST can identify whether the application correctly handles and sanitizes user inputs, thereby preventing potential injection attacks such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting (XSS). The true strength of DAST lies in its ability to provide a comprehensive assessment of an application's security posture from an external attacker's perspective. By identifying and addressing these vulnerabilities, developers can significantly enhance the security of their web applications, protecting them from a wide range of potential threats. In our comprehensive study, we applied DAST-based test cases to 23 WordPress plugins that require user or admin interaction with web forms. These plugins were selected based on their widespread use and critical functionality within the WordPress ecosystem. By simulating real-world attack scenarios through DAST, we assessed how these pluginshandle various types of input and whether they effectively mitigate XSS risks. The results revealed that XSS attacks were possible on three WordPress plugins, exposing significant security vulnerabilities, particularly on the admin side. Additionally, our findings indicated the potential for a multi-site insider attack, exploiting administrative privileges to compromise the security of all sites within a network.