This has been a long time secret concern of mine. WordPress is such a popular platform and everyone (including yours truly) is using it as a content management system in addition to blogs. It is only a matter of time it becomes vulnerable to all kinds of attack – just like Windows.
Guess I’m not that paranoid because there has been quite a bit of hacking going on this year. As if that’s not enough, if you’re not careful, there are some really, really bad themes out there that steal your traffic and have hidden code in too.
What can you do? Well for one, if you are using free themes, check them if they are clean before using. If you don’t know if they are clean, ask someone who knows to check them out. By the way, did you know, I have some free themes too? Here’s one. I’ll post two more later this week. Keep your eyes peeled.
Another note, is to secure your WordPress. Check out these tools and info:
WordPress Security Tips and Hacks on Noupe.com
Hat tip to Andrea R for pointing out those resources.
View Comments to “Will WordPress Be Like Windows?”
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Stefanie June 10, 2008
This is definitely a worry of mine. I try to stay updated, though, so I guess I’m just hoping the hackers will stick to the easier targets and leave my poor blogs alone!
Myrna June 10, 2008
Just sent this post to a friend who told me to be careful about ‘free’ WP themes.
The subject of the email was ‘present for you’. Lynette gives great info!
Thanks once again Lynette
Lynette June 11, 2008
@Stefanie: Yes, there are things you can do to reduce your exposure. Keep each installation up to date and apply the security measures highlighted in those two resources.
@Myrna: Thank you so much for passing it along.
India September 1, 2008
One of the suggestions mentioned in the article is to block WordPress folders by adding “Disallow” in robots.txt. Which folders can I block from the search engines without messing up the blog? Can I block all the folders? Also what if these folders have already been indexed by the search engines. If I block them now will they be removed from the search engines index?
Lynette September 3, 2008
Hi India, I would block the folders that basically have no bearing on your content. You can usually tell by looking at your URL. wp-admin, wp-content, wp-includes have no place in the search engines.
I’m not the best person to answer the 2nd part though, I believe over time they will be dropped but do get a 2nd opinion on that from a real SEO expert