Wordpress worms, and the importance of maintenance
September 12th, 2009 by Mickey Panayiotakis
wordpress
I am picky. I like substance rather than sensationalistic drivel. I get irritated by bad prose. I’ve been known to correct people’s grammar. And I actually spell out “you” and “our” when I text. As thus, I rarely find a blog post I’m willing to pass on. (Oh, the foreshadowing!) голова болит секс
Of course, now I’m going to tell you that I did find a blog post worth passing on. It’s from Matt, over at wordpress.org, on how to keep wordpress secure. But don’t just stay on the first paragraph. This is more about wordpress. If you’ve ever been online, if you are now online, or if you intend to be online ever, you owe it to yourself to read that, and take it to heart. This applies to car maintenance as much as it applies to wordpress or to any other online thing you do. Matt doesn’t sew (I dabble at it), but the premise is ageless: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
I’ve expounded on this before. Coincidentally, I just read some examples in a magazine that continue to car analogy. Tales of a forgotten oil change costing the owner the price tag of a new engine; ignored brake pads that ended up ruining the rotors; ruined transmissions; the list goes on.
This post brings it down to earth: regular maintenance is a known cost. Budget for it. Lack of regular maintenance (leading to a hacked site, for example) can cost many thousands of dollars. I was looking at a hacked site just this week: Over eight hours at emergency rates just to investigate. The site may require tens of thousands of dollars worth of work to make sure that all vulnerabilities are closed.
I guess routine maintenance is your “business decision”. Just call me when you get hacked. I may even be nice and not add the “I told you so” tax.