The GOOP Digital WordPress website team in Geelong has certainly been earning its keep in the opening months of 2017 ensuring our clients’ websites stay as safe and sound as possible in uncertain times.
The latest reward for our developers’ vigilance is ensuring GOOP Digital’s clients are on a version of the WordPress Content Management System which has patched a vulnerability hackers had exploited in the CMS.
The online world is full of news about WordPress websites around the globe being hacked and defaced with Middle Eastern political messages. Wordfence, a WordPress security vendor, this week estimated hacking attacks and defacing of WordPress sites increased 26 percent in just a day and had compromised almost two million sites in Google’s index.
In simple terms, the hackers had opened a hole in WordPress 4.7.0 and 4.7.1 which allowed them to edit posts on WordPress sites built on those versions. Fortunately, GOOP Digital clients pay an ongoing management fee which commits our developers to updating their websites and ensuring sites are on the most up-to-date and secure version of WordPress possible. GOOP Digital’s WordPress website clients are all on version 4.7.2 – the latest and most secure version.
Clients sometimes ask what their monthly fee to GOOP Digital covers and there’s a big chunk of the answer – security! At GOOP Digital we have a website developer working almost full-time ensuring our WordPress websites and their various features are as up to date and secure as possible.
If you have a WordPress website and your developer is not updating the CMS you need to change developers. If you don’t change you just might find your website has become an unwilling participant in a Middle Eastern propaganda campaign, or something just as disturbing.
For WordPress websites in Geelong, contact the team at GOOP Digital. We’re always happy to chat and offer advice.