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<div>1 – Security alerts are<i> good</i> thing. It means the hardening strategies are actually working. I get TONS of alerts from my firewall – all of which report that the robotic efforts of hackers are being repelled. Security alerts do not mean WP is "bad"
for security. Your domain will be hacked no matter which platform you use, or even if you use plain HTML. There are certain vulnerabilities in WP that hackers know about, but these are accounted for in the hardening plugins I mentioned. </div>
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<div>2 – You do not need a username named "admin". It happens to be the default username WP gives on install, but NEVER use it. Any user can be given Administrator privileges. This is how you solve your problem (assuming you are "admin"):</div>
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<li>In your "admin"user acct, change the email address to something different (doesn't matter – it's going to be deleted)</li><li>Create a new user with "admin's" old email address.</li><li>Delete the "admin" user and ascribe all of "admin's" posts/pages to the new user.</li></ul>
<div>That's it.</div>
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<div style="font-size: 14px; "><b>Steve Covello</b></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; ">Rich Media Specialist/Online Instructor</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; ">Granite State College</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; ">603-513-1346</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; ">Skype: steve.granitestate</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; ">Scheduling: <a href="http://meetme.so/stevecovello">http://meetme.so/stevecovello</a></div>
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<span style="font-weight:bold">From: </span>Brianne Binelli <<a href="mailto:bbgoldkey@gmail.com">bbgoldkey@gmail.com</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Reply-To: </span>"Low-traffic list discussing WordPress in education." <<a href="mailto:wp-edu@lists.automattic.com">wp-edu@lists.automattic.com</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Date: </span>Tuesday, September 10, 2013 7:03 AM<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">To: </span>"Low-traffic list discussing WordPress in education." <<a href="mailto:wp-edu@lists.automattic.com">wp-edu@lists.automattic.com</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Subject: </span>Re: [wp-edu] WP - security concerns?<br>
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<div>I receive a lot of security alerts on wp. I do have a Admin user name to get into the dashboard do you think this may be causing the problem. I thought you need to create a admin user name.</div>
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<div>thanks</div>
<div>have a great day</div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 8:19 PM, Covello, Steve <span dir="ltr">
<<a href="mailto:Steve.Covello@granite.edu" target="_blank">Steve.Covello@granite.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br>
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<div style="font-family:Tahoma;font-size:10pt;direction:ltr">Geez - I have had ZERO infections via WordPress in 4 years.
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<div>Plugins:</div>
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<div>Wordfence Security</div>
<div>WP Firewall 2</div>
<div>Secure WordPress</div>
<div>WP Secure Scan</div>
<div>WordPress HTTPS</div>
<div>WP Ban</div>
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<div>Best Practice:</div>
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<div>NO accounts named "admin"</div>
<div>htaccess file in wp-admin</div>
<div>NO default table prefixes in wp-config, such as "wp_". Change it to "wp_xRwFG_" or whatever.</div>
<div>original salt data in wp-config: <a style="font-size:10pt" href="https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/" target="_blank">https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/</a></div>
<div>Secure high quality passwords</div>
<div>Updated malware scans on user devices</div>
<div>Gravity Forms used on all forms, with CAPTCHA</div>
<div>SFTP on FTP accounts</div>
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<div>Occasionally check on Sucuri.net. If you want to be on top of it, subscribe to their scan service.</div>
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<div>There are other hardening plugins out there.</div>
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<div>- Steve</div>
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<div style="direction:ltr"><font color="#000000" face="Tahoma"><b>From:</b> wp-edu [<a href="mailto:wp-edu-bounces@lists.automattic.com" target="_blank">wp-edu-bounces@lists.automattic.com</a>] on behalf of Leslie Melvin [<a href="mailto:melvin@bard.edu" target="_blank">melvin@bard.edu</a>]<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, September 09, 2013 6:18 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:wp-edu@lists.automattic.com" target="_blank">wp-edu@lists.automattic.com</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [wp-edu] WP - security concerns?<br>
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<div>Hi Folks,
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<div>We have been hosting WP Multisite (for course blogs and as a blog supplement to our program websites) for a few years, with mixed results. Our community (users) love the flexibility of WP, but it has proven to be an unexpected support burden for IT...it
seems that all of our website/network hacks have been introduced via WP. </div>
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<div>I haven't seen the topic addressed by this group, so it appears our experience is isolated, which would lead me to suspect we are missing some simple safe-guards. Have any of your institutions dealt with WP-related security issues? Have you found any
successful, secure configurations, and if so, would you be willing to share your experiences with us? WP is proving to be such a valuable tool...</div>
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<div>If so, I will bring our Networks and Systems folks into the conversation, as they could answer specific questions related to our configuration and protocols.</div>
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<div>Many thanks in advance!</div>
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<div>Best,</div>
<div>Leslie</div>
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<div><b><b><font>Leslie A. Melvin</font></b><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:medium;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal"> | </span><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:medium;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal"><font size="3"><span style="font-size:11px">Manager,
Academic Technology Services</span></font></span><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:medium;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal"><br>
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<div style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:medium;font-style:normal"><font size="3"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-weight:normal">BARD COLLEGE</span><br>
<span style="font-weight:normal">PO Box 5000 | 204 Old Henderson | </span></span></font></div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:medium;font-style:normal"><font size="3"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-weight:normal">Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504</span><br>
<span style="font-weight:normal">office: <a href="tel:845.758.7496" target="_blank" value="+18457587496">
845.758.7496</a> |<span> </span></span><u><font color="#3e6ba9"><a href="http://www.bard.edu" target="_blank">http://www.bard.edu</a></font></u></span></font></div>
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