The WordPress platform is becoming more and more popular therefore it also becomes a more attractable target for hackers, like the brute-force attacks that took place just a month ago.

There are a number of very basic things you can do to help protect yourself:

• Always update to the latest version of WordPress
• Keep your plugins updated
• Keep your theme(s) updated
• Don’t use “admin” as your administrator username
• Use strong passwords

All of those suggestions are well within your control, of course. But if you have others registering on your site, then they can chose to change their password to one of their own.

How to fix this? Well use a Plugin that Enforce Strong Passwords.

You can choose the required password strength between 1 and 4. The default is set to 4, and so if that’s good with you, you don’t have to touch anything.

If a user attempts to update their password with one that isn’t strong enough for the plugin, it shows the following message:

“Please enter a stronger password to ensure your and this Blog’s security.”

If you prefer require stronger passwords for only those with a user level of Author and above, then the Force Strong Passwords plugin will do the trick.