Security Considerations

Security Principles

Developer Sitemap follows WordPress security best practices:

• Principle of Least Privilege — Only administrators can access settings
• Defense in Depth — Multiple layers of input validation
• Fail Secure — Errors default to safe behavior
• Data Minimization — Only stores essential configuration

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Access Control

Capability Requirements

Action	Required Capability
View admin pages	manage_options
Modify settings	manage_options
Regenerate sitemap	manage_options
View sitemap publicly	None (public access)

Nonce Verification

All form submissions verify WordPress nonces to prevent CSRF attacks:

// Nonces are verified on every form submission
if (!wp_verify_nonce($_POST['_wpnonce'], 'developer_sitemap_settings')) {
    wp_die('Security check failed');
}

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Input Validation

All user input is validated and sanitized:

Input Type	Validation Method
Checkbox values	sanitize_text_field(), cast to boolean
Priority values	Float validation, clamped to 0.0-1.0
Cache duration	Integer validation, min/max bounds
Post IDs	absint(), existence verification
Arrays	array_map() with appropriate sanitizer

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Output Escaping

All output is escaped to prevent XSS attacks:

Context	Escaping Function
HTML output	esc_html()
HTML attributes	esc_attr()
URLs	esc_url()
JavaScript	esc_js(), wp_json_encode()
XML content	Custom XML escaping for sitemap protocol

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Data Storage

What Is Stored

Data	Location	Purpose
Settings	wp_options	Configuration storage
Cache	Transients	Performance optimization

What Is NOT Stored

• User credentials
• Personal information
• External service tokens
• Tracking or analytics data

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Sitemap Security

Public vs. Private Content

The sitemap only includes publicly accessible content:

Content Type	Included?
Published posts/pages	Yes
Draft content	No
Private posts	No
Password-protected posts	No
Hidden products	No

XML Injection Prevention

All sitemap content is escaped to prevent XML injection:

• URLs are validated and encoded
• Special characters are escaped
• Invalid XML characters are removed

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Uninstall Cleanup

When uninstalled, the plugin removes all data:

• All plugin options from wp_options
• All cached transients
• No orphaned data remains

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Reporting Vulnerabilities

If you discover a security vulnerability, please report it responsibly:

1. Do not disclose publicly until fixed
2. Email security concerns to the plugin author
3. Include detailed reproduction steps
4. Allow reasonable time for response