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- Security Q1 2016
Security Q1 2016
Your Quarterly Security Update From BEC
Dear BEC Maintenance Customers,
We are going to try to email you quarterly to let you know about new security items, related to your Wordpress site and related to the internet generally. Don't worry, these are just a short and sweet way we say HI!
Wordpress Needed An Update… And Your Website Got It
January 6, 2016 saw a WordPress core security update. WordPress 4.4.1 fixes is a cross site scripting or XSS vulnerability. (This is what you pay us to do for you monthly, among other things.)
Two Factor Authentication
A few months ago, Nicole got impersonated on Facebook. Her friends kept emailing her ‘you got hacked’ but she knew better… because she had two factor authentication on for Facebook. And her email.
Two factor authentication means just that. After putting in a username/password, a code gets texted to your cell phone for you to type into the website to finish logging in. You can register specific computers/cell phones so you are not having to do this all the time but it’s excellent protection. (Your bank has been using it for years.)
While we all dragged our feet about doing it for the perceived hassle, it’s really not as bad as we thought. Here’s a how-to article for the more popular sites that use it: http://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/how-to-enable-two-factor-authentication-on-popular-sites/
Do you need an SSL? A secure certificate is a tool that essentially encrypts your website pages. If you are collecting, say, payment information from your customers, the pages asking for this sensitive info need to be secure. (You’ll see https in your address bar when this is happening.)
If you don’t know much about secure certificates besides what I just wrote above, Woothemes has an excellent FAQ about them that's not totally hard to understand: https://docs.woothemes.com/document/ssl-faq/
That's it for this quarter. Thanks for trusting us to keep your website safe and happy! Here's hoping 2016 finds you safe and happy so far as well!Nicole and the Breaking Even Team (your website bouncers)