CMS Security Audit: How to Prevent the Exploitation of Vulnerabilities on Corporate Websites

A CMS security audit is essential for detecting vulnerabilities on corporate websites and preventing serious security incidents

WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Wix, Shopify, Adobe Experience Management… You’ve surely heard of these CMS (Content Management System) platforms at some point.

This type of software allows companies and users to manage their websites quickly and easily, without writing code.

Thus, CMS platforms offer user-friendly interfaces for creating corporate websites and e-commerce sites, as well as publishing content such as blog posts or service and product pages.

CMS platforms are so prevalent in business environments that they have become a top-tier digital asset for millions of organisations. Unfortunately, this also makes them a target for malicious actors seeking to successfully attack companies.

That’s why it’s essential to conduct ongoing CMS security audits to detect unpatched vulnerabilities and malicious activity.

Below, we will review the risks facing CMS platforms and the companies that use them. Additionally, we will explain the benefits of conducting a CMS security audit in a company and why it is essential to manage the vulnerabilities affecting this software.

WordPress, the world’s most widely used CMS, is in the crosshairs of malicious actors

Although there are many CMS platforms in the world, the most widely used—especially among small and medium-sized businesses—is WordPress.

In fact, millions of businesses use WordPress to manage their corporate websites, and the exploitation of vulnerabilities affecting this platform has become a risk for organisations.

That is why we should not be surprised by the constant stream of vulnerabilities affecting this CMS platform.

For example, in March 2026, an SQL injection vulnerability (CVE-2026-2413) was detected in Ally, an Elementor WordPress plugin installed on more than 400,000 websites worldwide. Thanks to this vulnerability, malicious actors could steal confidential data stored on the websites without needing to authenticate.

The use of plugins increases cyber exposure

The case we just mentioned leads us directly to one of the keys to WordPress’s success: the ability to develop plugins and integrate third-party plugins into websites. In other words, you can add extensions that allow web developers to significantly customise websites and expand the CMS’s functionality.

However, the use of plugins also poses one of the main threats to a CMS’s cybersecurity, as it increases its exposure. Why? If a plugin installed on a CMS has a vulnerability, malicious actors can exploit it to successfully attack the CMS.

For example, a few days ago, we learned that EssentialPlugin, a suite of WordPress plugins, had been compromised, allowing malicious actors to infect thousands of websites using any of the plugins in the package with malware.

A few days earlier, it was revealed that a vulnerability in Ninja Forms (CVE-2026-0740)—a plugin for creating web forms without writing code, with 600,000 downloads worldwide—had been discovered. In this case, moreover, the vulnerability was already being actively exploited to upload arbitrary files to website servers and to execute remote code. In fact, in just 24 hours, the WordPress firewall had blocked more than 3,600 attacks.

Exploiting vulnerabilities in CMS platforms can cause serious damage to businesses

Another recent security incident related to WordPress involved a plugin that is also present in another of the world’s most widely used CMS platforms: Joomla.

Malicious actors were able to hack the update process for the Smart Slider 3 Pro plugin and release a malicious version containing multiple backdoors.

As a result, CMS platforms where the plugin was updated would be vulnerable. This is because the malicious version of the plugin also creates a hidden user in the CMS with administrative permissions and is capable of stealing sensitive data. This incident is no trivial matter when we consider that this plugin is used on more than 900,000 websites.

It is important to note that these are not isolated cases. In fact, exploiting vulnerabilities in outdated CMSs and attempting to compromise plugins and themes on CMS platforms are common attack vectors for malicious actors.

Given the widespread use of certain CMS platforms and the plugins that can be installed through them on corporate websites, it is clear that companies need to undergo a CMS security audit to avoid falling victim to attacks that could cause them serious financial and reputational damage. This is especially true for those who sell their products or services through e-commerce and their corporate websites.

Conducting a CMS security audit helps identify and resolve insecure configurations

It’s not just the most common CMS platforms used by small businesses that can be affected by vulnerabilities. For example, in late 2025, a proof-of-concept was made public that allowed an exploit of an improper configuration vulnerability (CVE-2025-54253) affecting Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) forms, a CMS used by large enterprises.

Although Adobe had already fixed it with a patch released in the summer of 2025, CMSs that were not updated remained exposed to this vulnerability, classified as critical, which would allow malicious actors to execute code remotely.

This vulnerability highlights the need to configure a CMS securely. Errors in endpoint configuration can leave them exposed without authentication, posing the risk of information enumeration or hostile actors executing commands in corporate environments.

Hence, it is essential to conduct a CMS security audit when using sophisticated enterprise platforms that allow for a high level of web environment customisation.

In this regard, Tarlogic’s cybersecurity team has developed a pentesting guide for Adobe Experience Manager applications.

In addition, a CMS security audit can identify insecure configurations during the development of web applications based on a content management system, thereby preventing a website with configuration vulnerabilities from going live.

The benefits of a CMS security audit

A CMS security audit conducted on an ongoing basis, combining the use of automated tools with analysis by cybersecurity experts, enables companies to:

• Perform specific security tests tailored to CMS platforms.
• Identify vulnerabilities present in their CMS and in the deployed plugins.
• Identify weaknesses related to CMS configuration and the servers hosting the websites.
• Detect vulnerabilities related to the CMS’s business logic that cannot be identified using automated tools.

In an increasingly complex and challenging environment, conducting a web security audit that takes into account the specific characteristics of CMSs is critical to preventing incidents that could affect business continuity and trigger serious economic, legal, and reputational consequences.

CMS vulnerability management is critical

Conducting a CMS security audit must go hand in hand with effective vulnerability management.

As we have seen throughout this article, the disclosure of vulnerabilities in CMS platforms or their plugins is common.

Through a vulnerability management service, you can:

• Inventory all digital assets.
• Continuously monitor vulnerabilities affecting a company’s CMS.
• Design a plan to mitigate them, taking into account whether they are already being actively exploited and their potential business impact.
• Reduce the time it takes to detect new vulnerabilities.
• Develop a strategy to invest available resources wisely.
• Verify the effectiveness of mitigation measures.
• Ensure that detected weaknesses are remediated before they are successfully exploited by malicious actors.
• Comply with cybersecurity and personal data protection regulations.

In short, the use of CMS platforms is essential for the productive sector in the digital age. However, it also necessitates an effective cybersecurity strategy to detect and address vulnerabilities related to CMS systems.

That is why it is critical to conduct regular CMS security audits to identify and address vulnerabilities, thereby preventing security incidents that could disrupt business continuity and result in significant losses.