Remove Update Nag Reminders

Bloggers run their blogs, rather than WordPress. Bloggers should decide when they are going to upgrade their blogs, NOT WordPress. And, certainly not whining and complaining registered users. WordPress’ update nag reminders are yet another way of revealing to hackers which version of WordPress your blog is running. John H. Gohde reviews a plugin in this post which fixes this security issue.

Registered users of your blog, and especially new subscribers should not have access to which version of WordPress your blog is running. John reminds bloggers that this is a well know security issue. Version update nag reminders such as:

“WordPress 2.7 is available! Please notify the site administrator.”

tell potential hackers that you are not running the latest version of WordPress. Not only can dealing with complaining users and clients be problematic for overworked bloggers, but it creates a security issue that should not be overlooked.

Hide Update Reminder Plugin

The Hide Update Reminder plugin, version 1.0 by Sarah G. provides a quickfix for this security problem.

The plugin is straight forward with no options. You simply install the plugin and activate it. All non-administrative users stop seeing WordPress update nag reminders upon logging in while administrators continue to see them.

John H. Gohde is glad that somebody took the time to develop this handy plugin that only needs to be activated whenever you have yet to upgrade to the latest version of WordPress.