New WordPress videos posted
Two new WordPress videos have been posted to the videos page at OrangeCat.com.
Is Your WordPress Installation Up-to-Date? (3:22) takes a few minutes to show you how to determine if your WordPress blog is running the latest version. If not it shows you what to do about it.
Although WordPress has been fairly bullet-proof through it’s various versions, each new version introduces new features, fixes bugs and increases security over the previous version.
The same can be said for plugins. Older versions of plugins could have security issues that have been addressed in later versions. In order to run the latest versions of a plugin, you may have to be running the latest version of WordPress as well.
Having your WordPress website hacked could be more than just as inconvenience. If you have the Google Sitemaps plugin installed (and you should), it will report any changes made by a hacker as new content. You could then lose precious ranking if Google determines your site is now less relevant. It is much easier to keep ranking than to rebuild it.
If you are an OrangeCat client, you can subscribe to our updating service that keeps WordPress, themes and plugins current as part of a website maintenance program. That way you never have to worry about your WordPress being up-to-date.
WordPress Security: Delete Your Admin User (3:38) explains how having the default admin user on your blog may be a security risk and could increase your risk of being hacked.
Far too many WordPress blogs still use the admin user that was created during installation. If a hacker can be reasonably sure that the username for your blog’s admin area is “admin” they merely have to crack the password to gain access.
Since so many passwords are pretty weak, using terms such as “joe123″ or “marysblog” or the even worse “wordpress” or “password,” using software to repeatedly try different passwords (called a “brute force attack”) could uncover your password in short order.
All recent installations of WordPress on OrangeCat servers has included the Login Lockdown plugin that stops this kind attack by limiting he number of times a password can be tried before the login is disabled for a pre-determined amount of time.
Deleting the admin user and replacing it with a more secure username is one step you can take to thwart a brute force attack on your WordPress administration. This video walks you through the process.
If you would like us to change your WordPress admin user or install the Login Lockdown plugin, use the OrangeCat.net Services Page to submit a request. Pricing is available on our Services Page.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
