Tutorials

The ‘fake plugin’ WordPress malware family: how to spot random-named directories in bulk

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A row of blue and orange CASSA-brand office binders neatly stacked on a shelf — visual metaphor for plugin directories that look identical on the outside but may contain very different things inside (photo: zulfugarkarimov / Pexels)

One of the most common WordPress malware patterns I’ve cleaned in the last two years isn’t a webshell or a credential stealer — it’s a “fake plugin” or “fake theme.” The attacker creates a directory in wp-content/plugins/ or wp-content/themes/ with …

Replacing find -exec with parallel: when -exec is fast enough and when xargs -P + -L starts winning

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Parallel metal rails or bars in perspective — photo by uppsychic on Pexels

Every shell-scripting tutorial recommends find ... -exec cmd {} \; for “do this command on every matching file.” It’s the classic, obvious pattern. It’s also dramatically slower than the alternatives once your file count goes past a few hundred — …