SiteLock anti-malware protection

[nchoney]

Just to keep things out in the open... I got an email this morning from the company that we paid the $300 to for anti-malware protection on the paperartistsonline.com site. Apparently Emily doesn't think we need that, so there was a request to cancel that service. I forwarded the email to Emily and made sure to ask that, if it does get cancelled, I get the refund back in my account so I can refund those of you who donated to that fee:
Elizabeth
Pam C
Beki
Dee
Sue
I'll keep you posted on whether SiteLock does cancel that protection.

[pbp908]

Monica, can you address our concerns about this? Is there a reason why Emily is cancelling this service and does she have something to replace it with? I appreciate redundancy in protection (but not Captcha!) and am of the school that there is never enough, so this is a little puzzling to me.

[KariBelle]

Okay, so let me explain -

I was not actually trying to cancel it. I was trying to temporarily deactivate it because I wanted to test a theory - I'm almost sure SiteLock is preventing the lost password emails from going out. But there is no temporary deactivation, so I sent them a contact request to ask HOW to cancel it, hoping that if there was way to do that, it might also lead to a way to temp turn it off.

That said, SiteLock isn't actually preventing any of the spam comments or anything. It never was. I had to install a plugin directly in the main webpage to prevent those comments - I've been working with Wordpress websites for over a decade and my personal one receives zero spam comments and has zero malware issues without spending multiple hundreds of dollars on security software. SiteLock is a very expensive, mostly useless, roadblock.

[Monica]

Monica, can you address our concerns about this? Is there a reason why Emily is cancelling this service and does she have something to replace it with? I appreciate redundancy in protection (but not Captcha!) and am of the school that there is never enough, so this is a little puzzling to me.

Pam, I believe your question was answered, but if you still have concerns we can discuss it a bit more. I used WordPress for 6+ years myself for the City of Selah and we didn't have issues so long as WP was kept to the current version and the plugins were installed. PAO was several versions behind the current one, and will be undergoing another update sometime within the next couple months to ensure we're as secure as possible.

You're welcome to send a message to KariBelle directly if you have more concerns/questions on this. She and I talk about anything she does for PAO, so I'm fully aware of what's going on, and this was all done with my blessing to troubleshoot why people aren't getting password change emails and other login issues.

[pbp908]

That answered my question. If the software was costing monies and was doing absolutely nothing and potentially causing further issues, by all means let's do away with it. This site, well, not this site, but this host and platform, is causing enough issues for now without adding on more. My primary concern was that we would be open to malware, but if the Site Lock is in actuality not doing what it's purporting to do - off with its head! Since we don't have sponsors or advertisements to bring in dollars and the site is privately funded (which is how we like it!), we don't need to spend unnecessary funds.

Thanks for clearing up all concerns I had! Thank you both for getting back to me so quickly about this.

[nchoney]

I don't think it can be de-activated.... it's paid til next March - if it's not needed or wanted, then ditch it. We had malicious files showing in the File Manager... so that's why it was recommended. That said.... I don't trust that they wouldn't have uploaded crap that would show up on their scan.. just in order for us to pay more money.

If it can be cancelled... I'll refund the folks who donated to the fee.

[Monica]

We'll let you know on that, Debi!