This week there was new of an unauthenticated user vulnerability in LiteSpeed Cache plugin. First and foremost, all of our websites are safe and sound. So, do not worry about that.
Unauthenticated vulnerabilities are bad. This one in particular had an issue that allowed any unauthenticated visitor to gain administrator level access. That’s really no good.
LiteSpeed Cache is a popular plugin for WordPress. It helps with the performance of your website. But its not CU*Answers Web Services’ preferred caching plugin. We use WP-SuperCache on nearly all of our websites (it’s one of our required plugins for your website.)
However, we did find a couple of websites that had LiteSpeed Cache installed but not activated. The good news is our automated infrastructure, which updates WordPress and plugins every Sunday night had already updated these plugins to secured versions a few weeks ago.
So, like I said. Everything is safe and sound. And rest assured, CU*Answers Web Services is committed to the security and performance of our websites.
Google has been talking about killing third-party cookies in Chrome for a few years. They were even on the verge of turning on their cookie replacement a year ago. Now, it seems all of that has been tossed aside and Google will reportedly be exploring new privacy tactics for users to self manage their options. Citing feedback from regulators, publishers, developers, and individuals in the advertising industry. Google says that, while the company still believes it can strike a balance between the online ad marketplace and user privacy, somehow. Yet, how that will work has been worked out yet.
Disabling tracking cookies is the default setting for Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari.
Read more at Lifehacker.com
This is just a fun article from Forbes.com about interesting statistics about the Internet and websites.
Here are some of my favorites:
1. There are about 1.09 billion websites on the internet in 2024
12. In North America, 45% of web traffic comes from mobile devices
36. It takes three months on average to design a website with basic features
40. WordPress is the most popular CMS, housing 43% of the internet’s websites
There are a bunch of gems in this list. Read the full article at Forbes.com.
Spam email has been a hot topic lately. Google and Yahoo! both recently implemented new policies to help reduce the amount of spam getting into inboxes.
CU*Answers has been adjusting email policies and processes to conform to these guidelines and update clients to best practices. You can follow these changes in the CU*Answers Kitchen.
To assist in this process, CU*Answers Web Services recently made a change to how email sent from your website is generated. Previously, your website might have sent email from any number of domain names (the part after the @ symbol in the email address.) This can cause several different problems.
Starting this May, the CU*Answers Web Services hosting servers will now automatically set valid email headers and sender envelope address for outgoing mail from domains to reduce chances of being treated as spam. That means that emails generated from your website will now be changes to appear to be coming from your own domain name. This aligns with SPF and DKIM policies. If CU*Answers does not host your DNS and you have not set up these DKIM policies, you may contact us for DKIM DNS entries for the webservers.
Please reach out to CU*Answers Web Services if you have any questions or concerns.
The accessibility of your website continues to be an important aspect of managing your website. Your website should be available to as many visitors as possible, and it should be easy for that visitor to find the information they seek. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are designed to standardize rules that make your website as accessible as possible.
Luckily, following best web development practices makes this easier. This article on DEV.to highlights 10 common accessibility mistakes and also shows how to address them. Some of these can be a little technical as they jump into the HTML code that makes up your website.
Need help with accessibility and your website? CU*Answers Web Services has an accessibility expert on staff and we offer a recurring program that evaluates your websites for common mistakes. These reviews even go beyond accessibility, we also look at general web hygiene for search engine optimization (SEO) and other topics.
Want to learn more about accessibility, the CU*Answers Web Services team has published several articles on CUSO Magazine. Here are some recent articles:
On Tuesday morning, April 16th, from 12:00 AM – 8:00 AM ET, CU*Answers Network Services will be performing internal network maintenance. During this time, there may be brief network interruptions to our website and email hosting.
