Wash your hands. And update your site.

This morning I woke up to an email from a former client that their site was down.

Talk about a rough start to a Monday.

As I dug into the issue, I quickly discovered that the site had been victim to a brute force attack. Hits on the site had increased 100x overnight. While we all hope for something to go viral, an increase like this is not normal.

So I looked a little further and realized that no updates had been run on this site in quite a while.

None.

I cleaned up the site and ran an update on nearly everything – WordPress core, plugins, themes… there might have been one plugin that didn’t need updating.

Updates are serious business. Websites are like houses. They need maintenance.

Roofs need replacing.

Windows need updating.

Even paint needs to be redone every so often.

And if you neglect it, eventually it’ll show. Stuff will get in that you don’t want in your house. Rodents, intruders, snow…

Your website is the same way. If you neglect it, eventually it’ll show. Stuff will get in that you don’t want there. Brute force attacks, hacks, violations of privacy…

Wherever you decide to host you site, please make sure that you’re running regular updates.

This is THE BEST defense against attacks.

It’s like washing your hands to prevent disease!

Sure, it won’t catch everything. But it will catch SO MUCH… It’s best practice to just keep washing your hands.

And updating your site.

Your website shouldn’t be a headache. Please update your site regularly.

(Shameless plug: Did you know we’ll do this for you? Our maintenance package for wordpress is designed just for issues like this: We’ll monitor updates, keep an eye on security, and even host your site for free because we feel so strongly about this. Visit https://fcpine.com/wordpress-maintenance/ for more information.)

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