(Newswire.net — May 19, 2013) Washington, DC — The NY Times reported that the Syrian Electronic Army hacked into the website and Twitter accounts of the Financial Times, also hacked were the Associated Press, The Onion and other media outlets recently.The group seized control of the accounts by setting up fake Google and Microsoft websites and getting employees to enter usernames and passwords.
The writer of the article Nicole Perlroth reported “Hacking has been an increasing pernicious problem over the last year.” The recent attacks follow dozens of successful attacks on media outlets such as NPR, Reuters and The Guardian. Researchers traced an attack back to an Internet address in Syria, that is connected to Rami Makhlouf, a first cousin of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. “Activists point to that connection as proof that the Syrian Electronic Army is backed by the Assad regime, an assertion that members deny”.
Wordpress security expert Paul Clifford held an emergency webinar recently to announce the increased threat to businesses that depend on wordpressites. Paul the creator of SecureScanPro which was developed to lock down and protect wordpress sites.
During the webinar he asked an important question, “how much is your site worth to you right now?”,..how much will you lose in time and money if your site goes down? Mr. clifford also reported, there are 700 million wordpress sites and 30,000 sites are hacked everyday. there are 90,000 sites already infected and $1 trillion in intellectual property stolen each year by hackers.
After years developing software systems for corporations, Mr. Clifford formed PageOneTraffic, now seving 16,000 customers.The most chilling information Mr. Clifford related to hackers was, not will it happen to you but when.
If you site is infected Google can de-index your site, your site gets blacklisted and is flagged as a spammer.
Is there help against hackers? Your webhost keeps a backup of your site right, so it’s not that big of a deal. I contacted popular hosting companies and the advice is back up your own website, they backup their servers but not individual sites.
Mr. Cliffords SecureScanPro checks 33 security vurnablities in wordpress sites and either fixes them or gives detailed instructions for doing to fixes. there a 8 website security checks you can perform to make sure your site is not an easy target for hackers.
1.check wordpress version,Keeping the WordPress core up to date is one of the most important aspects of keeping your site secure.
2.Pevent your wp-config.php file from being accessed
3. check if username still admin,Its important to change the wordpress username from its default setting of Admin. Leaving it as Admin means that potential hackers have only to guess the password.
4. domain.com/wp-admin/install.php,There have been several cases where attackers have used the install file to create access to the database.
5.There have been several cases where attackers have used the Upgrade file to create access to the database. Its important to remove or move this file.
6. The readme.html file reveals to a potential attacker the exact version name of wordpress you are using. This means it would be easy for them to identify weaknesses in your version and use them to compromise your website.
7. wp-content/uploads/Leaving this open to the outside means that attackers could steal access to hidden files. This would also be a copyright risk.
8. http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=xxxxx.com
To read the full article and others by Nicole Perlroth http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/technology/financial-times-site-is-hacked.html?_r=0
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For further information contact:
Mike “Hendo” Henderson
240-374-1166
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