Our WordPress news at the start of the week: The hack of a GDPR plugin is causing a stir, the release date for WordPress 5.0 has been postponed and there is also interesting news about the Classic Editor plugin. In addition, official support for two PHP versions is coming to an end. And we show you whether security plugins are really necessary to secure your WordPress site.
WordPress Security: Are security plugins really necessary?
WordPress is used by over 32 percent of all websites. This naturally makes our favorite CMS a popular target for attackers. But that's no reason to worry! Because protecting your website from hackers and malware is not that difficult. To ease your fears about WordPress security, our CEO Johannes shows you the most important protective measures and takes a closer look at the pros and cons of three popular security plugins.
Security
Serious security vulnerability in GDPR plugin
The GDPR plugin WP GDPR Compliance has a serious security vulnerability that allows attackers to create new WordPress users with admin rights, among other things. If you have installed the plugin, you should therefore update it to the latest version 1.4.3 as soon as possible and check your WP users!
Support for PHP 5.6 and 7.0 will be discontinued
From December 2018, no further security updates will be released for PHP versions 5.6 and 7.0. We therefore recommend updating to version 7.1 this year. You can find more information on this in our Helpcenter.
WordPress
New release date for WordPress 5.0
On Friday, Gutenberg co-lead Matias Ventura announced that the release of WordPress 5.0 will be postponed to November 27: "After listening to a lot of feedback - as well as looking at current issues, ongoing pull requests, and general progress - we're going to take an extra week to make sure everything is fully dialed in".
The Classic Editor plugin will remain available until 2021
If you are not yet ready for the Gutenberg editor, you can suppress it when updating to WordPress 5.0 with the Classic Editor plugin. However, it was unclear how long the plugin would work. Now the uncertainty has come to an end: The Classic Editor plugin is officially supported by WordPress until December 31, 2021.
The "Missing Manual" for the Gutenberg editor
If you have a question about the elements and functions of the new Gutenberg editor or are stuck when testing it, take a look at the Gutenberg Primer. Jessica Lyschik has put weeks of hard work into writing information and explanations about the new editor, creating an easy-to-understand Gutenberg manual.
Business
A look behind the scenes at Raidboxes
Our founder and CEO Torben talked a little about what goes on behind the scenes in Malte Helmhold's podcast "Little time - lots of effect". Among other things, you can find out how Raidboxes came about, why we don't have bosses and how important design really is. Just have a listen 🙂