Last year, our community launched a weekly series called Accessibility Weekly, where Amber Hines from Equalize Digital shared short, actionable lessons on accessibility. The goal was to take a complex topic and break it down into manageable weekly lessons that helped us steadily improve our skills over the course of the year.
The series was a huge success, with incredible feedback from the community. It became clear that we needed to recreate something similar for 2024. This year, we’re shifting our focus to another critical topic: website security.
Why Website Security Is Essential
Like accessibility, website security can be a challenging topic. It’s often technical, confusing, and sometimes even contradictory. However, as website professionals, it’s our responsibility to protect the sites under our care.
With our clients’ websites relying on us, it’s crucial to get security right. That’s why I’m excited to announce our new weekly series: Security Weekly.
What Is Security Weekly?
For this series, we’re partnering with Oliver Sild and his team at Patchstack, one of the most trusted names in WordPress security. Each week, Oliver and his team will share a quick lesson, tip, or topic related to website security.
The goal is to make these lessons short, actionable, and easy to understand. Whether you’re just starting to learn about security or looking to deepen your knowledge, these lessons will provide the foundation you need, along with resources to explore topics further.
Topics We’ll Cover
Security Weekly will cover a wide range of topics, including:
- Taking a layered approach to security
- Busting common security myths
- Understanding the difference between application and server security
- And much more
Each lesson will be posted on our website and shared inside our community. This gives us the opportunity to continue the conversation, ask questions, and learn from each other.
The First Lesson Is Live
Our very first lesson is already live, and it’s all about why WordPress websites are a target for hackers.
There’s a common misconception that small websites aren’t worth a hacker’s time. However, once you understand what hackers are after and why they target websites, you’ll see that no site is immune. Every website is a potential target, regardless of its size or purpose.
Join the Community
If you’re not already part of our community, now is the perfect time to join. Inside the community, you’ll have access to these lessons, the chance to ask Oliver questions, and the opportunity to engage in discussions with other members.
A Big Thank You to Patchstack
I want to extend a huge thank you to Oliver and the entire team at Patchstack for partnering with us on this series. Their expertise and reputation in WordPress security make them the perfect partner for this initiative.
If you’re not familiar with Patchstack, I encourage you to check them out. They offer incredible tools and resources to help secure WordPress websites.
Stay Updated
To make sure you don’t miss any of the Security Weekly lessons, sign up for my newsletter, The Friday Chaser. Each week, I share an editorial, highlight important conversations happening in the community, and provide updates on all the content we produce, including Security Weekly.
Looking Ahead
That’s all for this week! I’ll be back next week with a regular tutorial video. I’m catching up after the holiday break, and I hope you had a wonderful holiday season as well.
Happy New Year, and I’m excited to see what we’ll accomplish together in 2024!
Kyle Van Deusen
After spending 15 years as a graphic designer and earning a business degree, I launched my agency, OGAL Web Design, in 2017. A year later, after finding the amazing community around WordPress, I co-found The Admin Bar, which has grown to become the #1 community for WordPress professionals. I'm a husband and proud father of three, and a resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
