The website, WordPress.org, offers several tools for creating websites and blogs. Many of us have enjoyed using this wonderful creation of the Open Source Project. This Open Source Content Management System, very popularly known by most of us, as a blog publishing application, is powered up by MySQL and PHP. The powerful template and plug-in architecture of WordPress is used by over 10 to 15 percent of the websites.
Initially released in 2003, WordPress has grown over the years, with several versions and code names of the releases. In the past, much vulnerability has been noticed and many security issues have been taken care of. Over the last week, however, WordPress saw a severe Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack. DDoS attacks are accomplished using botnets of thousands of compromised computers that are directed to a target website with the motivation of overwhelming the site and taking it offline. The said attack has been fixed, but WordPress users have been advised that it could again recur at a later stage. This problem was earlier also noticed in 2009 and the required fix was introduced in version 2.8.5. WordPress even reported that the extremely large DDoS attack even affected connectivity in some cases.
As of now, after the March 4th and 5th attacks, the site appears stable and up and running.
