WordPress Worm To Watch Out For

Do you use “admin” as your user name for your WordPress blog? If so, you may be in danger.  Yesterday, at one of my favorite forums, one of the members brought to our attention a new threat for WordPrewss blogs, coming form a worm (thank you Nathan).

This worm basically generates a list of passwords and tries them all until it gets in. It only works if you have “admin” as your administrator.

There are several ways to change your user name form “admin” to something better suited:

1. You can use this plugin to change the admin username

2. If you doesn’t want to add yet another plugin, change your user name in phpMyAdmin (I think this one is a little more complicated, but some may like it).

3. Probably the easiest method is to just crate a new admin with a new user name  and then remove the original “admin” account. When you delete a user in WP it asks who you want to attribute their posts to, so your posts will be safe.

Of course, it’s always a good idea to create a more complicated, harder to crack user name s and passwords. So many people use their kids names, anniversaries, and all kinds of other personal information, that is easily accessible. One way to create safe use names and passwords is to use a program like Roboform.

Here are just a few of the things Roboform can do for you:

. Manage your passwords and Log In automatically.

. Fill long registration and checkout forms with one click.

. Encrypt your passwords to achieve complete security.

. Generate random passwords to maximize password strength.

. Back up and Synchronize Passwords between computers.

. Fight Phishing and Defeat Keyloggers.