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Tech Tips

Automatic WordPress Updates — The Pitfalls

WordPress updates and website maintenanceHere’s a great example of why auto­mating updates in WordPress is only smart for non-business web­sites. As I write this, one of the WP plugins pub­lished by Facebook just released an update with invalid code.

Not just a bug — code so wrong that it crashes sites. Code that wouldn’t have passed basic testing.

I’m sure “Facebook for WooCommerce” will be fixed promptly. However, over 900,000 online shops use it. If they were all running auto­matic updates, almost a million shops would be offline right now.

Other WordPress Update Problems

This comes on top of the GADWP fiasco earlier this year, too. In that, ExactMetrics changed the nature of their popular plugin without warning, through an “update”.

Version 6 of the “Google Analytics Dashboard for WP” plugin was “redesigned from the ground up”.… Read the rest 

Can A VPN Improve Small Business Cybersecurity?

Can a VPN improve small business cybersecurityAll busi­nesses today should recognise the importance of having an effective cyber­se­curity policy in place. Data breaches seem to be con­stantly in the news. Whilst those tend to be high-profile cases like TalkTalk and British Airways, small busi­nesses fre­quently suffer data breaches too. In recent years, Virtual Private Networks (“VPNs”) have become quite common for home use — so can a VPN improve small business cybersecurity?

Well, yes — but let’s cover the basics before examining the business benefits of a VPN.

What is a VPN?

A VPN is a private network (within the public internet) that enhances your online privacy by:

  • Giving you a tem­porary IP address when you go online
  • Encrypting data transfers between your com­puter and other online resources
  • Wrapping that data inside other data to keep it even more private (called “tun­neling” or “encap­su­lation”)

An IP address is the numeric address of your com­puter on the internet.… Read the rest 

NotPetya ransomware cyber-vaccine

RansomwareCybersecurity matters. As I type, the world is facing another major ransomware attack. This has been dubbed NotPetya — because it’s like one called Petya, but not identical. As usual, it targets Windows machines. Still, a pos­sible “vaccine” has been found in the last hour. So this is just a very quick post to help pub­licise that ASAP.

The vaccine, from top security site BleepingComputer, involves cre­ating a read-only file in your C:\Windows dir­ectory. That’s easier said than done, as Windows pro­tects that folder. So the fol­lowing batch file can do it for you:

https://download.bleepingcomputer.com/bats/nopetyavac.bat

Alternatively, this post explains how to apply the fix manually. Huge thanks to WordFence for high­lighting this in their excellent post here.

Ransomware Updates

March 2018: Ransomware isn’t always in the news, but the threat hasn’t gone away.… Read the rest 

Windows 10 Slow? Try These Two Quick Fixes

Do you Windows 10 Quick Fixfind Windows 10 slow at times? That it goes from speedy to sluggish for no obvious reason? Well, before you start wor­rying about malware (which used to be the most common culprit), try these quick fixes.

  1. Open the Command Prompt in Admin mode. You can right-click on the Start menu and choose “Command Prompt (Admin)” — or try one of these other ways to open the command prompt.
  2. If a “User Account Control” warning appears, click “Yes” — you do want to let this app to make changes to your device. If nothing seems to happen, check your taskbar for a new icon — this warning some­times hides behind other windows.
  3. Once you see a black box with the title “Administrator: Command Prompt”, click into it and type the two fol­lowing com­mands, one after another:
        net stop "Windows Search"
        net stop superfetch

You should see an improvement within seconds of these two ser­vices stopping.… Read the rest