With WordCamp Seattle 2011 only 2 days after the meetup, I was surprised to see that this months meetup still pulled in a solid audience of 45 WordPress users, developers, “dev-signers” and more.  The topic and speaker may have had a lot to do with it. In the past, we’ve had speakers cover many topics about how to build and improve your website, but all that is worthless if you get hacked. That’s why we invited out guest speaker Andrew Villeneuve to present the topic of “Hardening WordPress: Securing your installation“.

Keeping Your Website Safe, Secure & PURE

Nowadays, WordPress is a popular choice not only as a blogging platform, but as a content management system. Although the WordPress developers work hard to patch exploits when they are discovered, users who self-host their own WordPress blogs are ultimately responsible for security. Unfortunately, not enough WordPress administrators take security seriously, and as a result, WP sites get needlessly compromised. “Hardening WordPress” will focus on securing an installation and protecting it from hackers. Topics covered will include upgrading, using HTTPS, setting permissions, making backups, best-in-class security plugins, and configuring .htaccess to build a strong firewall.

More About Andrew

Andrew Villeneuve is an entrepreneur and activist who discovered WordPress while looking for the ideal blogging platform in 2006. A lifelong Washingtonian, he is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute (a political strategy center working to raise America’s quality of life through innovative research and imaginative advocacy), as well as a columnist for Reporter Newspapers. He became a security evangelist after being repeatedly called on to assist friends in un-hacking their WordPress sites, which had been disfigured and/or compromised.

*FOR THOSE OF YOU LOOKING FOR PRESENTATION MATERIAL, IT WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ON THE MEETUP GROUP WEBSITE AND HERE ONCE WE GET IT IN.