Leak in WordPress plug-in lets hackers redirect you to another site

It was already known that WordPress is not the most secure Content Management System, but most exploits are found in the plug-ins.Recently a leak was found in a plug-in called WP Live Chat Support. With this leak it was possible for malicious users to redirect you to their own website.The website you were redirected to was full of malware, the plug-in is still used by about 50,000 websites.

Fortunately, this leak has already been closed, but many users still need to update the plug-in and WordPress.If you are using our Managed WordPress hosting you will not have to worry about this because everything is updated automatically.If you do use this plug-in it is recommended that you update this plug-in and WordPress as soon as possible.

Keeping WordPress up to date

Partly because of security vulnerabilities such as these it is advisable to always update WordPress as much as possible.Many of these updates close these kinds of leaks, making your hosting a lot safer.

Before you start updating WordPress, it is always advisable to make a backup of both your files and your database.If something goes wrong during the update you can always restore it to how it was before.When you have done this you are ready to update WordPress, how to do that exactly can be found in the following article: Updating WordPress.

How do I keep WordPress secure?

Now that you've read this you probably want some tips on how best to keep WordPress secure.To start with, it is recommended to have a strong password, think of a random password.With this you almost always have a really strong password that is almost impossible to guess.

Keeping WordPress up to date is also very important, we have Managed WordPress hosting for this, it is automatically updated.You also need to make regular backups, if something goes wrong you can restore it within seconds.

If you have any questions about this, you can always check whether a chat employee is available.If there is no one on the chat, you can always create a ticket to our helpdesk.