{"id":168739,"date":"2017-10-25T13:00:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T13:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/premium.wpmudev.org\/blog\/?p=168739"},"modified":"2019-09-20T21:40:34","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T21:40:34","slug":"cross-site-contaminations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/cross-site-contaminations\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dangers of Cross-Site Contamination and How to Prevent It"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the worst things about flu season is the inevitability that you\u2019re going to get sick. You might work in an office environment where coworkers come in with runny noses.<\/p>\n

Or maybe you take the bus to a co-work space where other commuters cough and touch the same railing you\u2019re holding onto.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps you work from the \u201csafety\u201d of your home where your kids are likely to share some nasty germ they picked up at school with you.<\/p>\n

No matter where you go or who you\u2019re surrounded by, sometimes it feels like nowhere is safe.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s what happens when you work and live in close proximity to others. If one person is infected, it\u2019s only a matter of time before it spreads.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s exactly how cross-site contaminations happen.<\/p>\n

Security is obviously a major concern for everyone who comes into contact with a website, be that the owner of the site, the person shopping on it, or the developer who built it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because there seems to be danger at every turn.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s say you decide to make the economical and efficient decision to put multiple websites on a single network (whether that\u2019s from using WordPress Multisite<\/a> or simply running them from the same hosting account).<\/p>\n

An insecurity within just one of those websites could put the entire network in danger.<\/p>\n

Abiding by WordPress security best practices<\/a> is a good place to start, but it might not be enough. If you\u2019re running a network of WordPress sites all from one place, then this post is for you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to briefly cover who these cross-site contamination concerns pertain to and then give you a special checklist of tips to use when running a network of websites.<\/p>\n

\"Security <\/div>\n

Who Should Be Concerned About Cross-Site Contaminations in WordPress?<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s face it: hackers are needing to get more creative about how they crack into websites these days.<\/p>\n

WordPress may be an easy target because of its popularity, but it\u2019s not an easy platform to break into if the people who build and manage websites abide by security best practices.<\/p>\n

Of course, that logic starts to waver a bit when the number of websites on your network increases.<\/p>\n

Here are some of ways in which you might consolidate your web properties, unintentionally putting them at risk for cross-site contamination:<\/p>\n

WordPress Multisite<\/h3>\n

You\u2019ve created a Multisite network<\/a> within WordPress.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s a great feature for web developers who want to easily manage a network of sites all from one WordPress installation, this also means that one bad apple could easily poison the whole batch.<\/p>\n

In essence, with all these shared resources, files, plugins, logins, and so on stored in the same place, this increases the risk that one website harmed could lead to all sites on the network being compromised.<\/p>\n

Multi-Domain Hosting Account<\/h3>\n

The same goes for websites that share a hosting account (not necessarily those on<\/em> shared hosting; just those that share one account).<\/p>\n

All it takes is one website that\u2019s not properly secured (through a bad plugin or a weak password) and hackers can wreak havoc through the entire network of sites.<\/p>\n

There are a number of parties who could potentially be affected by this:<\/p>\n