Tac Historia

What TAC Does

TAC stands for Theme Authenticity Checker. TAC searches the source files of every installed theme for signs of malicious code. If suchcode is found, TAC displays the path to the theme file, the line number, and a small snippet of the suspect code. As of v1.3 TAC also searches for anddisplays static links.

Then what do you do? Just because the code is there doesn't mean it's not supposed to be or even qualifies as a threat, but mosttheme authors don't include code outside of the WordPress scope and have no reason to obfuscate the code they make freely available to the web. We recommendcontacting the theme author with the code that the script finds, as well as where you downloaded the theme. The real value of this plugin is that you canquickly determine where code cleanup is needed in order to safely enjoy your theme.

History

TAC got its start when we repeatedly found obfuscatedmalicious code in free WordPress themes available throughout the web. A quick way to scan a theme for undesirable code was needed, so we put together thisplugin.

After Googling and exploring on our own we came upon the article by Derek from 5thiryOne regarding this very subject. The deal is that many 3rdparty websites are providing free WordPress themes with encoded script slipped in - some even going as far as to claim that decoding the gibberishconstitutes breaking copyright law. The encoded script may contain a variety of undesirable payloads, such as promoting third party sites or even hijack attempts.