Enabling a bare minimum of WordPress Security

Running a CMS on any website can be cumbersome, constantly checking for updates, manually updating and securing the configuration, if it’s not secure-by-default. A big help is the auto-updating feature of WordPress and the plugins helping administering this. Also the security plugins, minimizing bot attacks and evil doers is also comforting and needed in a hostile environment, such as the internet.

Disabling comments and creation of users is recommended, if not needed. Exploits has been seen that elevates privileges.

So my recommendation is to follow these steps as a bare minimum:

Plugins to install and configure:

404 To Homepage

Disable XML-RPC

Easy Updates Manager

Force HTTPS

Force Strong Hashing

Limit Login attempts Reloaded

Meta Generator and Version Info Remover

Wordfence Security

WP Statistics

UpdraftPlus(if you need backup, due to your host providers lack thereof)

Use WPScan and Nikto2 from a kali VM, regularly, to test your website for vulnerabilites, misconfiguration, etc. Follow the recommendations and secure your website as much as you feel adequate. removing obvious readme files, using .htaccess, etc.

Qubes OS – Joanna leaving the project, Marek taking the lead

For quite some time, actually since the announcement of Qubes Air, it seemed like Qubes OS has been in a bit of a standstill, strategically.

One of the most important projects in the world, security-wise, is now facing the unknown. Joanna has found other, more interesting grounds, for her to pursue.

It might be a great day or a sad day. Now Marek is taking over, it will be interesting to see if a guy who works a lot already, can take on yet another hat. Will strategic partnerships, fundraising, etc. drown in a developer tunnel-vision mindset?

Hope not. Please DONATE! to ensure vision and development.

CISSP study course

If security has any interest and you live in the United States, the CISSP course is a worthy Human Resource stamp on broad IT understanding & Security. Unfortunately, Europe doesn’t have an equivalent course focusing more on European legislation such as the GDPR as opposed to major focus on American legislation and regulations, such as HIPAA, COPPA, Privacy and Fraud related material.

I took a course 12 years ago, but was too inexperienced to pass the exam back then. I decided that now, more experienced in the security domains and wiser ;), was the time to push through and get the certification, so I bought a few books, and studied hard, taking a week off work cramming, provisionally passing the exam, giving them 6 weeks to check up on my endorsements, etc.

I purchased the following books:

  • (ISC)2 CISSP Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official Study Guide, 8e & CISSP Official (ISC)2 Practice Tests, 2e
  • Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK, Fourth Edition
  • CISSP For Dummies

The CBK, I bought to use as a reference manual after advice from a colleague.

The dummies book lacked a few things, so after a few chapters and some answers to questions in a prep test, not present in the book (regarding security models), I decided to solely focus on the official study guide. I did look up stuff I didn’t understand properly in the Official Study Guide, to see if it was explained better in the Dummies.

Happy studying, if you think it’s worth a shot. No matter what, it’s a great way to catch up on stuff you don’t work on on a daily basis.

And when completing the exam, a great way to get CPE credits for your program is to connect ISC2’s brighttalk channel to your CISSP ID , and all the ISC2 webinars you watch, will automatically be registered.  See support article here