Wordpress News

BuddyPress has entered the world of blocks with the release of version 6.0, the latest major update that has been in development since November 2019. The release, code-named “iovine’s” for a favorite pizza restaurant in Paris, introduces blocks for Groups and Members. It also marks the completion of the BP Rest API, adding the final remaining endpoints for Blogs, Blog avatar, Friends, Group Cover Image, Member Cover Image, and User Signups. The first set of blocks allow community site owners to insert a specific Member or Group from the editor into any WordPress post or… More Info

You must have noticed that WordPress stores your password so that you don’t have to type it out every time you want to log in? It makes logging into your website a fast and easy experience. But you might be wondering if the stored password can be stolen? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Stored passwords can be stolen. When hackers get their hands on your password, they will use it to break into your site and wreak havoc. They can run all sorts of malicious activities like redirecting your visitors and stealing information from your website, sending spam email, storing files and folders on… More Info

In episode 121 for May 18th 2020: A new Thunderbolt flaw could let hackers steal your data in under five minutes, new vulnerabilities in a popular WordPress plugin, and details on why the US Senate just rejected a plan to require a warrant to obtain Americans’ web browsing history. ** Show notes and links mentioned on the show ** Thunderbolt flaw lets hackers steal your data in ‘five minutes’https://www.wired.com/story/thunderspy-thunderbolt-evil-maid-hacking/ Thunderbolt 3 The USB-C that does it allhttps://thunderbolttechnology.net/consumer/ Thunderspy tool to test if your PC is… More Info

iA Writer has been delighting users with its minimal writing experience for nearly a decade, racking up more than 3 million downloads. The most recent version 5.5 release for Mac and iOS moves the bar higher for competing writing apps with new support for previewing PDFs and improved support for publishing to self-hosted WordPress sites. In 2019, MacStories selected iA Writer as App of the Year, describing it as “a case study on how to build a desktop-class iOS/iPadOS app in 2019 that understands the traits of each platform while offering an opinionated, sophisticated… More Info

Image: Erik Mclean Researchers at website security firm Sucuri have discovered a new WordPress malware used by threat actors to scan for and identify WooCommerce online shops with a lot of customers to be targeted in future Magecart attacks. WooCommerce is an open-source WordPress plugin with over 5 million active installs and designed to make it easy to run e-commerce sites that can be used to “sell anything, anywhere.” Attacking WooCommerce online stores is not something new as shown by previous attacks that were attempting to hack into online stores by brute-forcing admin… More Info

Attackers can exploit a critical vulnerability in the WP Product Review Lite plugin installed on over 40,000 WordPress sites to inject malicious code and potentially take over vulnerable websites. WP Product Review Lite helps site owners to quickly create custom review articles using pre-defined templates. The plugin comes with support for including affiliate links, rich snippets, review widgets, as well as for buy buttons for additional monetization streams. Persistent XSS leading to site takeover The WP Product Review Lite bug found by the Sucuri Labs research team can be remotely… More Info

Before Kathryn Pressner became a WordPress.com Happiness Engineer (our name for customer support specialists), she spent several years as a freelance website designer, charging clients to build sites with customized WordPress themes.  Though she had the chops — “my job took a lot of technical skill,” she says — she realized the inherent inefficiencies in her line of work. “To build a site designed from scratch that matches the brand and has custom features, the cost can add up,” she says. “And some business owners I worked with never became comfortable with… More Info

Another WordPress plugin with over 1 million active installations has made it to the news due to security bugs. This time, it’s the Page Builder plugin for WordPress sites that has a couple of bugs allowing full site takeovers. Page Builder WordPress Plugin Bugs Wordfence has highlighted another vulnerable WordPress plugin that boasts more than 1 million active installations. As revealed in their blog post, the popular WordPress plugin Page Builder by SiteOrigin had multiple security bugs. Exploiting these bugs could allow an adversary to gain complete control of the target… More Info

Watch out block patterns. There is an old player in town making the hard sell before you have even rolled out of bed. Envato just dropped a massive library of template kits for Elementor in your front yard. Not to worry, the company plans to open things up for the block editor in the future. The Elementor page builder just makes the most sense right now. It was the first to market. It is mature and has a backing of 5 million users, many of whom will be accustomed to commercial upsells, and $15 million in recent funding. Financially, it is the smart play. The company can also test… More Info

Last June we reported that Google was looking to build directly into WordPress the automatic generation and submission of XML Sitemaps. This way when you publish content, and you didn’t set up an XML Sitemap, the XML Sitemap file will be done automatically. Gary Illyes from Google said on Twitter that WordPress might get native sitemap support!” He shared this tweet from Pascal Birchler, a Google engineer, who said “we’re making great progress towards a merge proposal for WordPress 5.5.” This is in regards to getting the XML Sitemaps feature plugin for WordPress built into… More Info