Mrs. Mecomber's Scrapbook

After a massive blog hack attack, I’m much more keen to the tools and techniques for hardening my WordPress installation. I have found some very valuable resources, so I thought I’d share them here with you. Do realize that hacks on WordPress blogs has risen exponentially. Take care to keep your WordPress sites secure. WordPress [...]

I discovered a great site that will scan your website or blog for malware, exploits, and other nasty vermin: URL Void. It’s great! It’s free to use and it works well. In this age of profligate hacking, something like this is almost a requirement for any webmaster. I have heard numerous horror stories from my [...]

So you have a firewall. How do you know that the firewall is working properly? Here’s a terrific resource for checking your firewall strength: GRC Shields Up! The site has been around a long, long time (I remember it waaaay back about 6 years ago now! Maybe even older!). I rely on it to tell [...]

I’m horrified at the rampant spread of malware and viruses that are hitting computers. That junk used to be a threat for people who visited “seedy” websites, or who opened up email attachments (which I don’t). Now, your computer can get a viruses or trojan just by VISITING an infected website. Disgusting! I found a [...]

This blows my mind: what was once high-tech security measures comes to a computer near you. C|Net.com wrote a riveting article about the latest program to come down the pike: KeyLemon. It uses the webcam to detect your face and upper-body shape. There’s even a Firefox plugin for logging in to social networking sites. KeyLemon [...]

Did you realize that you can control what Internet sites (including advertisements) are displayed on your computer? Within Windows, there’s a file called “Hosts” that essentially controls what websites your computer can connect to. You can modify the Hosts file to block websites on your computer. It’s a great way to block ads, malicious sites, [...]