{"id":1584,"date":"2019-07-22T08:54:42","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T15:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/?p=1584"},"modified":"2019-07-22T08:54:43","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T15:54:43","slug":"wash-your-hands-and-update-your-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/wash-your-hands-and-update-your-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Wash your hands. And update your site."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This morning I woke up to an email from a former client that their site was down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Talk about a rough start to a Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I looked a little further and realized that no updates had been run on this site in quite a while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

None. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Updates are serious business. Websites are like houses. They need maintenance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Roofs need replacing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Windows need updating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even paint needs to be redone every so often. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wherever you decide to host you site, please make sure that you’re running regular updates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is THE BEST defense against attacks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s like washing your hands to prevent disease!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

And updating your site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your website shouldn’t be a headache. Please update your site regularly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(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.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1584"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1588,"href":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1584\/revisions\/1588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fcpine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}