There is an obvious question here, right?
Why do you still have this database sitting around?
Seriously, why? Either you’re telling the truth and you have a vulnerable system sitting out there that you’ve never even used, or you have been using it and you’re lying to save face now that data has been breached. Neither one makes you look particularly good, does it?
You know, when I hear companies tout the performance level of their employees, I do have to wonder what sort of expectations they are setting. There isn’t a company out there, including the one I work for, that doesn’t brag about having A+ performers. So what happens when someone makes a mistake or has a C day?
I mean, you really should use one for the obvious reason listed here, it lets you create a ton of different passwords, and make them complicated enough that they are hard to crack, since you no longer have to remember them, but they also make it easy for you to help someone gain access to important information and accounts when you are unable to. Because believe me, it happens.
Yeah, remember all that took about being flexible for single parents, the diversity and inclusion projects we talked about kicking off, the efforts we were going to make on remote work to help us be more inclusive? Turns out that required some hard work we weren’t really interested in doing. They see this, they know it, and they are going to look for a place that is better. They no longer trust you.
Who will you be left with when everyone who wants better leaves for it?
The breach of the WordPress credentials is bad, as is the sFTP credentials. Sure, if you are still using the same WordPress password that GoDaddy assigned to you when you started the account, you really need to step up your game.
WordPress is an inviting target, because getting admin access to a WordPress install, or really any other content management system, makes it super easy to lock out the original owner and inject anything you want into the site. Want a place to spread malware in drive-by injections? Nothing like an already existing, and maybe even trusted, WordPress site, eh?
This quote from Kevin Love is something that just stood out to me because it’s something that I think is so important to understand. Not just for a professional athlete, but for any of us to remember about our own line of work, or to remember when it comes to young people in school:
“You can’t achieve yourself out of depression,” Love says. “You can’t achieve yourself out of that high-level of anxiety.”