Alerts and Warnings
Scam: threatening email or contact-form spam from “Melissa”
Our standard maintenance plan includes one hour of consulting a month. In the last couple of days several maintenance clients have contacted me after receiving scary, threatening “copyright infringement” messages coming from their contact forms or other sources. Here’s one example. Note the suspicious elements. And here’s another, note the similar email address? Others I’ve…
Read MoreBelts and suspenders, eggs in one basket, backup plans, and A2Hosting ransomware!
The popular A2Hosting company is struggling with a ransomware attack that’s knocked quite a few of their Windows-server clients offline. While we’ve recommended A2Hosting to some of our WordPress clients we direct them to Linux hosting so they’re unlikely to have been affected by this attack. Ugh! Ransomware is a serious problem for smaller ISPs…
Read MoreIs the California Consumer Privacy Act the next GDPR? Yes, so don’t worry
A friend in the local WordPress Slack channel cited a recent post on the tech site Ad Age and added “in case you haven’t heard – California’s new “Consumer Privacy Act” (‘GDPR’) law goes into effect January 2020. Clients should start taking their Privacy Policies more seriously. Fines of $750/privacy violation + AG can sue…
Read MoreBut what if the malware is on your browser not your website?
Here at RealBasics we care a lot about keeping websites secure and sustainable. But occasionally a client will say there’s something funny going on. For instance that their website is showing advertisements or popups — something we never build into client’s business websites.* This occasionally happens to computer security researcher Dr. Neil Krawetz, who did…
Read MoreGood time to change your (too-frequently-used) passwords
FYI, if you re-use passwords it might be a good time to a) change passwords on your most critical accounts (bank, Google, Facebook, business websites, you-know-better-than-I-do…) Because thanks to a recent release of 1.4 BILLION username/password pairs hackers are having a field day! Breaking: Aggressive WordPress Brute Force Attack Campaign Started Today, 3am UTC From…
Read MoreOnce you get your website secure it’s easy to keep it secure!
It’s a mistake to say “WordPress is insecure.” Yes, it may have once been insecure but then Toyota’s cars once had motorcycle engines! A lot’s changed. David Hayes recently said this very clearly. It is very common for people who know very little about WordPress to say that it’s insecure. And there’s some reasons from history that this diffuse…
Read MoreHas Your Account Been Breached? How Would You Know??
It’s more common than you’d think! Today, millions of websites are vulnerable to attacks including top brands like LinkedIn, Adobe, Target and more. However, when companies refuse to release or even admit their mistakes, it can leave the rest of us out in the open with our usernames and passwords. Luckily, there’s a site that…
Read MoreGoogle Chrome Now Displays Warnings for Unencrypted Websites
You heard that right! It is estimated that Google Chrome has over 1 billion users today. Given that it’s one of the most popular and up-to-date web browsers, I am glad they’re finally taking a step in the direction of alerting users when a site is not secure. This labeling system is currently active…
Read MoreThe Worst SiteGround Hosting is Better than the Best GoDaddy Shared Hosting
I’m going to be real blunt here and say don’t use GoDaddy for shared hosting. Just don’t. I’m going to go further and say if you are using GoDaddy for shared hosting stop. Just stop. I hate saying it because there are some very nice people at GoDaddy. Great support people. The company is really committed to WordPress…
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