In which I get hacked

Or, why I now distrust the WordPress App.

[Note: I’m tagging this with an April date, but am actually writing it some months later. Sorry for the trickery, folks!]

As I was diligently trying to update this journal from the unreliable and slooow internet connections in the various guest houses where we stayed during the rest of our trip, I began having trouble checking that my posts had posted. My entire site was forwarding to a sweepstakes company. Although I can’t be sure (not being fully techy like that), I’m pretty sure the security breach made possible by vulnerabilities in the WordPress app, which I was using to write and publish my posts. This was especially handy because I hadn’t brought a laptop–just my iPad.

Which meant very limited access to my site, and no FTP. So no way to fix the hack. I contacted several folks who I thought might be able to help me–my webhost, my theme designer, a web designer friend–but had no luck. No one could tell me what had happened or how to fix it. Especially not how to fix it from an iPad in rural Scotland. (Imagine my frustration when, some six weeks later, my webhost emailed me all, “Hey, did you know you’ve been hacked?” And I was all, “DUH! Jerk.”)

In the end I decided to stop stressing during my vacation, parked my site (so as not to benefit the foul sweepstakes company), and stopped writing.

The rest of the Scotland posts are all written post return. And I’ve uninstalled the WordPress app.