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Malware Scanning Systems Improvement
-We are in the final stages of deploying improved malware scanning capability on all WP NET servers.
In addition to the external malware scanning we perform using Sucuri Security’s SiteCheck scanner, we will also be performing server-side malware scanning using industry standard software which provides a more robust and comprehensive scanning capability.
For the time being we will continue to operate both systems for malware scanning, but we will be reviewing this in the future and we may discontinue the Sucuri SiteCheck scanner if we find that it is no longer beneficial.
If you have any questions regarding this, please feel free to get in touch.
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PHP 5.6 is coming
-We are in the later stages of testing PHP 5.6 for use on our multi-tenant Managed WordPress servers. Currently these servers run PHP 5.4.
WordPress is known to work well with PHP 5.6, and very few plugins report incompatibility with 5.6, so the upgrade process should cause very few — if any — problems.
PHP 5.6 does bring with it some exciting new features. Not least among them: speed improvements, largely thanks to the built-in Opcode cache. When upgraded to PHP 5.6, our Managed WordPress customers can expect a small-to-medium speed boost when using the WP Admin and other PHP intensive pages.
Cloud VPS server customers can rest easy you’re already running PHP5.5 or 5.6, both of which include the Opcode cache.
We’re still a good few weeks away from rolling this out to all users but it is on the way!
If you have any questions about running WordPress with PHP 5.6, please just get in touch.
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WordPress 4.2 Update Progress
-Most of our hosting customers have now been updated to the latest WordPress version: 4.2.1.
Those remaining on v4.1.1 are mostly WooCommerce sites, as we are still completing testing with this plugin and it’s many extensions.
We recommend that WooCommerce users remain on v4.1.4 until we have finished testing WordPress 4.2.x with WooCommerce. The reason for this is to do with taxonomy term splitting in WordPress 4.2+. … continues
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Managed Cloud VPS servers now available
-We’re thrilled to announce that our Managed Cloud VPS server products are now officially available.
We have been offering this service to a few select customers for a while now, and we have been carefully testing and monitoring the platform to ensure that it’s stable and fast. We’re pleased to say that it is now rock-solid — and thanks to SSD RAID drives — it’s crazy fast!
Starting at only NZD$199 per month you can get yourself a fully managed Cloud VPS server, powered by 64-bit Ubuntu Linux. We install a custom designed hosting stack, featuring Nginx with SPDY and PHP-FPM. You can choose to run either PHP 5.4, 5.5 or the latest and greatest: 5.6. … continues
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FREAK Attack — WP NET is secure
-I’ve posted about this on our Announcements page, but thought I’d mention it here too — all WP NET servers have been patched and tested as safe from the FREAK Attack SSL/TLS bug. We actually installed patches and tested a good couple of weeks ago, so we’ve been secure for sometime now.
The FREAK Attack affects browsers as well, so you should test all the web browsers you use.
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Increased resources now available on all plans
-As we continue to grow, we want to ensure that our hosting plans provide the right balance of resources that our customers need.
To this end, we have today increased the allocated resources on all hosting plans as follows. All prices remain the same. … continues
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The SSLv3 ‘POODLE’ Vulnerability
-All our servers now have SSLv3 disabled to mitigate the recently revealed SSLv3 vulnerability, dubbed POODLE.
WP NET servers are NOT vulnerable to the POODLE attack.
Please note that this issue affects both servers and browsers, you should disable SSLv3 in your web browser as soon as possible.
For help with disabling SSLv3 in your browser go to: zmap.io/sslv3/browsers.html or scotthelme.co.uk/sslv3-goes-to-the-dogs-poodle-kills-off-protocol/
For more information about the POODLE vulnerability, please read the following references:
- http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.co.nz/2014/10/this-poodle-bites-exploiting-ssl-30.html
- https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2014/10/14/the-poodle-attack-and-the-end-of-ssl-3-0/
- https://scotthelme.co.uk/sslv3-goes-to-the-dogs-poodle-kills-off-protocol/
- https://community.qualys.com/blogs/securitylabs/2014/10/15/ssl-3-is-dead-killed-by-the-poodle-attack
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.nz domain registrations now available
-WP NET now offers the new ‘.nz’ TLD domain registrations. You can register or transfer .nz domains directly from our website.
Pricing is the same as all other ‘nz’ domains; NZD$40 per year.
You can search for domain names and see our complete price list on our Domain Checker page.
You can read more about .nz domains on a special NZ Domain Name Commission website: anyname.nz
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Another week — another serious security vulnerabilty
-Security vulnerabilities are happening more and more, again this week there are been two serious security issues revealed.
iThemes, creators of the very popular BackupBuddy and iThemes Security plugins have had their membership systems compromised, and it appears likely that hackers have gotten away with up to 60,000 users email addresses and passwords. If you are an iThemes customer, you should immediately reset your password — your previous password won’t work any more, as iThemes have disabled them — you must reset your iThemes membership password before you can access your account. If you are a user of Backup Buddy, iThemes Security Pro, iThemes Sync or iThemes Stash then this affects you. Please go to the iThemes website and reset your password now. … continues
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Why use Managed WordPress hosting? Security, security, security.
-It’s been a busy week for WordPress security, firstly a critical security issue was discovered in the very popular WordPress slider plugin; Slider Revolution, and just today an important security fix was released for Gravity Forms, another very popular WordPress plugin.
Whilst in both these cases the developers have responded rapidly to resolve issues (in fact the Slider Revolution bug was patched back in February 2014), the onus does fall on to the user to update their plugins. Failure to do so could leave your website vulnerable to attack. The Slider Revolution bug was particularly nasty, allowing a malicious user to download the wp-config.php file (or just about any file actually). The wp-config.php file contains all the database connection credentials so this was very serious indeed. … continues
System Updates
System Updates