1. WordPress 4.5 has just been officially released;
2. WordPress gives free default SSL for its hosted sites;
3. A WordPress plugin may have caused the Panama Papers leak;
4. WordCamp Bucharest 2016.

WordPress 4.5 has just been officially released

Before upgrading don’t forget to do a full backup of the site, because it is very possible to find issues with third party themes and plugins, even with popular ones like Visual Composer.

What New in WordPress 4.5:

• Site logo settings
• Responsive preview display
• Inline link editing
• New shortcuts
• Improved comments moderation section
• Image optimization improvements
• Login as username or email
• And some good features dedicated to developers

WordPress gives free default SSL for its hosted sites

Automattic made a big step offering free SSL to all the websites hosted on WordPress.com. It means millions of websites will be safer from spying and interception techniques. There’s also a benefit for publishers, as Google now gives more of a boost in its search rankings to sites that offer encryption.

A WordPress plugin may have caused the Panama Papers leak

Keeping an entire WordPress updated remains one of the most important measure to take in order to have a secured website. I’m sure everyone heard of the Panama Papers scandal, it seems an outdated version of one of the most popular WordPress plugins used on their website (which, by the way, was hosted on a server in their office, yes, unbelievable!!!) may be caused it. Wordfence made a good and complec analysis which gets very technical, but here’s the bottom line:

• The Mossack Fonseca WordPress site was built using the Slider Revolution plugin (you know those sliders that everyone wants on their website).
• The plugin wasn’t updated since 2013.
• The plugin had code that wasn’t secure and allows someone with very technical skills to “exploit” the vulnerability.
• Within a couple of minutes, someone could gain “superuser” access to the web server their website is hosted on. If this server is on a network with other computers in their office all of those computers could be accessed through this hack.

This is still just a speculation but the main idea is very clear: UPDATE your WORDPRESS, your THEME and your PLUGINS!

WordCamp Bucharest 2016

I am very happy to announce that this year we’ll have WordCamp Bucharest. We haven’t fixed the day but it will be this fall, either by the end of September or the first week of October. Once we’ll have a signed contract for the venue we’ll publish the official website and we’ll announce the date. Until that we’re looking to recruit new volunteers so if you want to be part of the organizing team, you can contact me using the contact form or you can contact the other MeetUp organizers.