Jay LeonardThe latest WordPress release, WordPress 3.7, also called as Basie, comes with a number of changes and updates behind the scenes. Because WordPress is an open source framework, it has always been vulnerable to mass attacks. I personally see tens of attempts each day to crack our website password. WordPress 3.7 helps users protect websites by assisting them in creating stronger passwords with improvements to the password strength indicator.
Password Strength Indicator
Choosing a strong Username and Password is one of the most important steps you can take to protect your website. However, we now have to create a password for countless websites and applications. This requirement eventually wears you down and you tend to use similar passwords or those easy to remember.
The new WordPress password strength indicator assists you in creating a strong password for your website by checking your password for common patterns and pop culture references. For example, WordPress 3.6 indicates Best%Analyst1 as strong.
Now, the WordPress 3.7 password Strength Indicator shows this same password as weak. Perhaps because, although the password has a combination of capital letters, numbers, and special characters, it uses dictionary words such as Best and Analyst in the password. This higher sensitivity will help users create stronger password for their websites.
Reduced Admin Tasks
Starting with WordPress 3.7 you will not be prompted to update your installation for maintenance and security updates from WordPress. This may not apply to all websites; however, WordPress assures that it is available for most websites. You will see an indicator informing you if your installation supports this specific feature.
As wonderful as it sounds, I am sure there are a few others who are apprehensive about losing the control to choose. Well, there is an answer to that too. If you want to disable the automatic update feature on your website, insert this in your config.php file.
define( ‘AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED’, true );
WordPress is an easy-to-use and flexible platform for business and personal bloggers to build their online brand. WordPress’ next major update, 3.8, is scheduled to release in December and I look forward to some more great new features. How about you?
You can learn more about WordPress and Blogging by reading our book – Blogging with WordPress: From Concept to Clarity where we walk you through the complete process of setting up your own website or blog, starting from strategy to execution, and also talk about marketing and security for your website.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jay Leonard.
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Love that they are starting to include more security features, but I’ve already stared using the password creator on my passwordbox app – works for me!