We successfully went to and returned from the Dark Side – the WordPress Database.

Yesterday’s Wizard Weekly call was about the little known about but very important WordPress Database.  We had some excellent comments and questions that time did not allow to answer so I will answer them a few at a time here.

1.  I wonder: is there anythng we might have to do, say if the database is messed up somehow?

You can go to the MySQL database tab in CPanel and for each database there will be a ‘Check’ and ‘Repair’ button.  Click on ‘Check’ to see if any problems are reported and if there are, click on ‘Repair’ and the database will try to repair itself.  Other than that – the data inside phpMyAdmin is editable but I wouldn’t go there alone!  It’s a very scary place!  It’s fine to go look but when you are modifying stuff in there it is frightening.

The good news is that bad stuff rarely happens to the database itself.  Sometimes the connection breaks but the data is still there.

2.  When hackers get into a site, is it the database they hack?  And what can they do and how to prevent it?

Vulnerability – everything is vulnerable.  There are hackers out there who write stuff to ‘inject’ stuff into your database.   I’m always on the lookout for stuff like this and will report on it when I find it to be valid.  So far – nothing earth-shaking has come up because wp itself is really pretty secure.  Stuff happens when you use plugins and themes from unfamiliar (and unverified) places.

is it the database they hack?’  Not generally – they put weird code into the program files to make things redirect or look bad.  The database is really fairly secure – unless you upload stuff that has an ‘injector’ in it.  That is prevented by checking what you want to upload.  How – google the name of the ‘thing’ and see what you get.  ONE nefarious report is all it takes for me to put it on my ‘do not use’ list.

 Two excellent questions – more in days to come.

 I know I stressed the importance of backups so here is the url to get wp-db-backup -

 http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/

 Please get this very important plugin, install it, activate it, and USE IT.