Jan 6 2007
Important WordPress Security Update
The WordPress Organization released an important update to their blogging software yesterday. Its a good idea to update your software because it fixes a problem which hackers may be able to use to compromise your blog’s security.
I updated the software without any problems. This was my first WordPress update so I was interested in seeing how simple it would be to do. I have many different plugins installed and modified PHP code so I wouldn’t be able to just delete all of the files and upload the new version.
After backing up the blog and deactivating the plugins, I uploaded the new version which overwrote the existing files. Then I reactivate the plugins and everything was working as before.
I have to admit that whole process would be difficult and intimidating to novices. Backing up the PHP code can be done with an FTP client. You can backup the database with the WordPress Database Plugin that comes with WordPress. After activating it, go to Manage -> Backup in the Site Admin area. There you can backup the database to a file that is saved on your computer. Its simpler than WordPress’ recommendation of using phpMyAdmin to backup your database.
The latest version of WordPress is 2.06 and next version will be 2.10. I still recommend WordPress for blogging because of its ease of use and versatility.