I enjoy sharing the pathetic phishing emails that make it past my spam filters. After watching various waves of phishing campaigns come and go over the past 20 years, I have come to accept that it’s just a part of life on the Web. Phishing scams have been happening since the dawn of the Internet, with no signs of stopping anytime soon. About the best you can do is practice safe email handling practices and never open any links or […] Continue reading »
As a full-time web developer and typical human being, I rely on the Internet for a great many things. So when the Internet is not available, my work (and play) comes to a grinding halt. Fortunately my primary ISP is pretty solid, but it still goes down every once in a while. So to maintain my workflow (and general sanity), having a backup Internet service provider is absolutely essential. Here’s one way to do it.. Continue reading »
Like many of you, I have been working online for years now, more than most. Over the course of the past 20 years, I have created accounts at hundreds and hundreds of websites. That includes all the work-related stuff, like web development, plus LOTS of social media sites, online services for everything from email to security monitoring. Not to mention all of the accounts created for mundane things like banking, utilities, Internet and phone service, and so forth. Continue reading »
I’ve tried 1Password and Dashlane, and several other popular password managers for both Mac and PC. It always seems to be the same thing: things start off great and then go downhill from there. For example, I was loving 1Password, and then it locked me out of my password file/account. Likewise for a couple of years Dashlane was great, but then they started making drastic changes like moving from standalone app to browser extension Web-based UI. The confusion involved with […] Continue reading »
Have you ever wanted to make a WordPress site private? So that only specific users are allowed access? For example, for my found-images site eChunks.com, I decided to require user login in order to access any content. So now for that site, public access is not allowed, and any posts, images, and all other content is available only to logged-in users. This tutorial explains four ways to make a WordPress site private or members only, so that only authenticated/trusted users […] Continue reading »
By now most have heard about the WP Sitemaps feature introduced in WordPress version 5.5. From what I’ve read most existing sites that needed a sitemap already had one via one of the many free sitemap plugins. But for new WordPress sites going forward, having all the sitemap code in the WordPress core now means that new sites have the option of rolling with the default WordPress sitemaps, or use a dedicated plugin to do the job. This post is […] Continue reading »
![[ POST Requests ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2019/wordpress-post-requests.jpg)
I’ve written before about protecting against malicious POST requests using Apache/.htaccess. In this tutorial, we’ll look at how to modify GET and POST requests using PHP and some core WordPress functionality (with no .htaccess required). Normally you would want to manipulate URI requests at the server level, but that’s not always possible (like on shared hosting). So in those cases where you want to modify GET, POST, or other types of requests on a WordPress site, check out the following […] Continue reading »
![[ Monitor WordPress Login Page ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2019/monitor-wordpress-login-page.jpg)
There are all sorts of plugins that you can use to monitor and protect the WordPress Login Page. That’s not what this post is about. This post is aimed at developers and DIY site admins, who like to keep a close eye on site activity. Talking hands-on with code. How familiar are you with the traffic hitting your WP Login Page? Do you know the difference between a brute-force attack and legitimate login requests? The WP Login Page (wp-login.php) is […] Continue reading »
![[ Call to undefined function ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2019/fix-error-undefined.png)
I’m seeing a big increase in bot attacks targeting theme files directly. First they get the URL to your theme directory. There are numerous ways for a bot to get this information. For example most themes include assets like CSS and JavaScript files, and the link includes the full URL. So then once they have the theme URL, bad bots will make direct requests for well-known theme template files, like index.php and header.php. Requesting template files directly may reveal possible […] Continue reading »
![[ WordPress Ultimate Comment Blacklist ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2019/wordpress-comment-blacklist.jpg)
How do YOU stop comment spam? If you’re like a lot of WordPress users, you just grab another plugin or two and call it good. I mean after all, plugins like Akismet work great at stopping spam. The only downside is that, well, you’re relying on another plugin. And that’s fine for folks who just wanna “get ’er done”, although each active plugin requires additional maintenance and server resources. Continue reading »
![[ Automatic IP Blacklist ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2018/automatic-ip-address-blacklist.jpg)
Recently a reader going by the name of Rock Star sent me a cool little PHP script that automatically updates your site’s .htaccess with a current list of bad IP addresses. This is useful because it gives you better “real time” protection against attacks and malicious requests. This tutorial shares the code and explains how to implement in two easy steps. Continue reading »
