WordPress AI Security Scanner Plugin

Production-ready WordPress plugin for AI-powered security scanning and threat detection.

An AI-powered WordPress security scanner with intelligent threat detection and automated remediation capabilities. Combines traditional security scanning with artificial intelligence to provide proactive threat detection, malware identification, and security hardening recommendations.

Quick Start

Download & Install from GitHub Releases

Recommended method for production use:

1. Download the latest release:

   • Go to Releases
   • Download wp-ai-security-scanner-v1.1.1.zip

2. Install via WordPress Admin:

   • Log in to your WordPress admin panel
   • Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
   • Click Choose File and select the downloaded zip file
   • Click Install Now
   • Click Activate Plugin

3. Access the plugin:

   • Navigate to AI Security Scanner in the admin menu
   • Start your first security scan!

Alternative Installation Methods

Manual Installation:

cd /path/to/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/
unzip wp-ai-security-scanner-v1.1.1.zip

Then activate through WordPress admin panel.

Development Installation:

cd /path/to/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/
git clone https://github.com/daryllundy/wp-ai-security-scanner.git

Then activate through WordPress admin panel.

Features

Core Security Capabilities

• 🤖 AI-Powered Malware Detection - 5-layer detection pipeline with entropy analysis, heuristics, and optional cloud AI
• 🔍 Smart Vulnerability Scanning - Pattern-based detection of OWASP top 10 vulnerabilities
• 📊 File Integrity Monitoring - Hash-based file change detection with confidence scoring
• 🧠 Behavioral Analysis - Code behavior pattern recognition for WordPress-specific threats
• 🔒 Automated Quarantine System - Safe file isolation with backup and restoration
• ⚡ Real-Time Scanning - Comprehensive file system analysis with live progress tracking
• 📈 Comprehensive Reporting - Detailed threat analysis with severity rankings

Security & Privacy

• 🔐 AES-256-CBC Encryption - Secure storage of API keys and sensitive data
• 🛡️ Rate Limiting - Automatic throttling for external API calls
• 📝 Audit Logging - Complete security event tracking and activity monitoring
• 🏠 Privacy-First - All primary analysis occurs locally
• ✅ CSRF Protection - Input sanitization and WordPress nonce verification
• 🔑 Role-Based Access - Integration with WordPress capability system

Performance

• ⚡ Scans 1000+ files per minute
• 💾 Memory usage < 64MB during active scanning
• 🎯 CPU impact < 10% utilization during background scans
• ⏱️ Dashboard load time < 2 seconds

Requirements

• WordPress 5.5 or higher
• PHP 7.4 or higher
• MySQL 5.7 or higher
• 256MB RAM (recommended)

API Integration Setup (Optional)

The plugin supports optional AI-powered analysis through external APIs:

OpenAI Integration

1. Get an API key from OpenAI Platform
2. Go to AI Security Scanner → Settings
3. Enable "OpenAI Integration"
4. Enter your API key
5. Click "Test API Key" to verify

Benefits:

• Advanced code analysis with GPT-4
• Natural language threat descriptions
• Context-aware malware detection
• Enhanced zero-day threat identification

Cost: ~$0.01-0.03 per file analyzed (pay-per-use)

VirusTotal Integration

1. Get a free API key from VirusTotal
2. Go to AI Security Scanner → Settings
3. Enable "VirusTotal Integration"
4. Enter your API key
5. Click "Test API Key" to verify

Benefits:

• Hash-based malware verification
• Global threat intelligence database
• Multi-engine malware detection
• Known threat identification

Limits: Free tier includes 1000 requests/day

Usage

Starting a Scan

1. Go to AI Security Scanner → Dashboard
2. Click Start Full Scan or Quick Scan
3. Monitor progress in real-time
4. Review results when complete

Managing Threats

• View Details: Click "View" to see threat specifics
• Quarantine: Safely isolate malicious files
• Ignore: Mark false positives
• Clean: Automatically remove threats (when available)

Configuration

Go to AI Security Scanner → Settings to configure:

• Scan paths and file types
• Email notifications
• Scan frequency
• File size limits
• OpenAI API integration
• VirusTotal API integration

Security Features

File Quarantine

• Automatic backup creation
• Safe file replacement
• One-click restoration
• Secure storage in protected directory

Threat Detection

• Signature-based scanning
• Heuristic analysis
• Behavioral pattern recognition
• Confidence scoring system

Notifications

• Email alerts for critical threats
• Real-time dashboard updates
• Scheduled scan reports
• Quarantine notifications

Developer Information

Architecture

The plugin follows WordPress coding standards and uses:

• Object-oriented PHP: Clean, maintainable code structure
• WordPress APIs: Native hooks, filters, and database functions
• Custom Database Tables: Optimized storage for scan results
• jQuery-based Admin UI: Responsive AJAX interface with real-time updates
• Cron Integration: Scheduled background scanning

Database Schema

The plugin creates four custom tables:

• wp_ai_scanner_results: Scan results and threat data
• wp_ai_scanner_config: Configuration and signature storage
• wp_ai_scanner_quarantine: Quarantined file management
• wp_ai_scanner_audit_log: Security audit trail and activity logging

Testing

Full test suite with 83 tests covering all major functionality.

Run the test suite with PHPUnit:

# Install development dependencies first (if needed)
composer install --dev

# Run all tests
phpunit

# Run specific test file
phpunit tests/test-malware-detector.php

# Run with coverage report
phpunit --coverage-html coverage/

Test Coverage:

• Database operations (7 tests)
• File scanning engine (10 tests)
• Malware detection algorithms (29 tests)
• Security features including encryption and rate limiting (13 tests)
• Enhanced scanner functionality (12 tests)
• Admin API integration (12 tests)

All tests use WordPress test framework and mock WordPress functions for unit testing.

Performance

• Scan Speed: 1000+ files per minute
• Memory Usage: <64MB during scanning
• CPU Impact: <10% utilization
• File Size Limit: Configurable (default 10MB)

Plugin File Structure

Production Release Structure:

wp-ai-security-scanner/
├── wp-ai-security-scanner.php    # Main plugin file
├── includes/
│   ├── class-database.php        # Database operations
│   ├── class-scanner.php         # File scanning engine
│   ├── class-malware-detector.php # Threat detection (multi-layer pipeline)
│   ├── class-admin.php           # Admin interface
│   └── class-security-features.php # Security operations (encryption, rate limiting)
├── assets/
│   ├── css/admin.css             # Admin styling
│   └── js/admin.js               # jQuery-based admin interface
├── docs/
│   └── ALGORITHM_DOCUMENTATION.md # Detection algorithm details
└── README.md                     # Documentation

Development Repository Structure:

The full repository includes additional development files:

• demo/ - Docker-based demo environment with sample threats
• tests/ - PHPUnit test suite (83 tests across 6 test files)
• phpunit.xml - Test configuration

These files are excluded from the production release zip.

Threat Detection Capabilities

Signature-Based Detection

• Eval obfuscation patterns
• File inclusion vulnerabilities
• Shell execution attempts
• Known backdoor patterns
• Base64 encoded payloads
• Cryptocurrency mining code
• SQL injection attempts
• WordPress-specific exploits

Heuristic Analysis

• Suspicious function usage
• Dynamic file inclusions
• Direct user input handling
• Code obfuscation detection
• Entropy analysis
• Behavioral pattern recognition

AI-Powered Features

Detection Capabilities:

• Entropy Analysis: Shannon entropy calculation to detect encrypted/obfuscated code
• Behavioral Scoring: Cumulative risk scoring based on suspicious patterns
• Obfuscation Detection: Multi-factor scoring for code obfuscation
• OpenAI GPT-4 Integration: Advanced code analysis with natural language understanding (optional)
• VirusTotal API: Hash-based malware verification with 70+ antivirus engines (optional)
• Confidence Scoring: Multi-source threat validation with severity ranking

Security Considerations

• Local processing: Primary analysis occurs locally for privacy
• API Security: Secure API communications with OpenAI and VirusTotal (optional)
• Data Protection: AES-256-CBC encryption for API keys with secure key generation
• Access Control: Role-based access control with WordPress capabilities
• Input Validation: Comprehensive sanitization and CSRF protection
• Audit Logging: Complete activity tracking for security events (scan events, threats, quarantine actions, settings changes)

API Integration Security

• API Keys: Stored with AES-256-CBC encryption in WordPress options
• Rate Limiting: Automatic throttling (20 req/min OpenAI, 4 req/min VirusTotal)
• Error Handling: Graceful degradation when APIs are unavailable or rate limited
• Privacy: File contents sent to APIs only when locally flagged as suspicious
• Validation: Real-time API key validation and testing

License

GPL v2 or later

Support

For technical support or feature requests, please contact the plugin developer.

Project Status

✅ Phase 1: Complete - Full plugin functionality with comprehensive test suite

The plugin is production-ready and suitable for:

• Portfolio demonstration of WordPress development skills
• Real-world security scanning (with appropriate precautions)
• Educational purposes and security research
• Small to medium WordPress installations

Test Coverage:

• 83 tests across 6 test files
• Database operations (7 tests)
• Scanner engine (10 tests)
• Malware detection (29 tests)
• Security features (13 tests)
• Enhanced scanning (12 tests)
• Admin API integration (12 tests)

Demo Environment:

• Docker-based WordPress installation
• 13 realistic malware samples for testing (includes EICAR)
• Fully automated setup via demo/start-demo.sh and wp-cli

Contributing & Development

This project is part of a portfolio for a WordPress Support Engineer role. While it's a personal portfolio project, issues and suggestions are welcome.

Development Setup:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/daryllundy/wp-ai-security-scanner.git
cd wp-ai-security-scanner

# Run tests
phpunit

# Start demo environment
cd demo
./start-demo.sh

For detailed algorithm documentation, see docs/ALGORITHM_DOCUMENTATION.md.

Changelog

Version 1.1.1 - 2026-01-15

• 🧪 Added fully automated offline demo with wp-cli setup
• 🧭 Added dynamic port selection for demo services
• 🧬 Added EICAR sample to demo dataset

Version 1.1.0 - 2025-12-08

• ✨ Added AES-256-CBC encryption for API key storage
• 🛡️ Added rate limiting for external API calls (OpenAI: 20 req/min, VirusTotal: 4 req/min)
• 📝 Added comprehensive audit logging system
• 🗄️ Added audit log database table
• 🔒 Improved security event tracking
• 📚 Updated test coverage documentation
• 🎁 First official release with production-ready zip file

Version 1.0.0 - Initial Development

• Core scanning engine
• AI-powered threat detection
• WordPress admin integration
• Quarantine system
• Comprehensive test suite

Download

Latest Release: v1.1.1

Download the production-ready plugin: wp-ai-security-scanner-v1.1.1.zip