Hi guys this is my first post on wpcult the great site Austin built.  Hope you guys find it usefull.

If you run a blog using the wordpress software then your blog is a target to hackers.  Below I will list some hacks and just how they can help you keep your business/site safe.

The following is  code to Block Bad Queries and protect your blog from malicious URL Requests.

Place the following code into a text file and name it what ever you like for example blockbadqueries.php upload it to your plugin folder and activate it in your wordpress admin just as you would any other Plugin

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Block Bad Queries
Plugin URI: http://perishablepress.com/press/2009/12/22/protect-wordpress-against-malicious-url-requests/
Description: Protect WordPress Against Malicious URL Requests
Author URI: http://perishablepress.com/
Author: Perishable Press
Version: 1.0
*/
global $user_ID; if($user_ID) {
  if(!current_user_can(‘level_10’)) {
    if (strlen($_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’]) > 255 ||
      strpos($_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’], “eval(“) ||
      strpos($_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’], “CONCAT”) ||
      strpos($_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’], “UNION+SELECT”) ||
      strpos($_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’], “base64”)) {
        @header(“HTTP/1.1 414 Request-URI Too Long”);
 @header(“Status: 414 Request-URI Too Long”);
 @header(“Connection: Close”);
 @exit;
    }
  }
}
?>

 This Great plugin was made by Jeff Starr of Digging into WordPress

Protecting your blog with .htaccess 

.htaccess files have lots of possibilities. below is some code that will help protect your wordpress from modification of _REQUEST and/or GLOBALS and scripts injection.

 This is real simple just paste the following code into your .htaccess file. Always make a backup of your .htaccess before editing, better to be safe.

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (\<|%3C).*script.*(\>|%3E) [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} GLOBALS(=|\[|\%[0-9A-Z]{0,2}) [OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} _REQUEST(=|\[|\%[0-9A-Z]{0,2})
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [F,L]

Thanks to Oussama for this great hack

Don’t know PHP that well?

Well here is a simple way to add a share script like fbshare.me to your site, via shortcodes.

Paste the following code in your functions.php file in order to create your shortcode:

function fbshare_script() {
     return '<div class="fbshare"><script src="http://widgets.fbshare.me/files/fbshare.js"></script></div>';
}
add_shortcode( 'fbshare', 'fbshare_script' );

Once done, you can display the facebook share button anywhere on your posts. In WordPress editor, make sure you are in HTML mode and insert the following: [fbshare].

When your post will be published, the shortcode will be replaced by the fbshare.me button.

Last week I wrote how to “Use WordPress to print a RSS feed for Eventbrite attendees“. It was pretty popular, but then I found myself in a place that was more annoying. Trying to incorporate that into a blog post or page.

Without having to download a plugin that will allow PHP to be executed inside a post, I would have to create a template file and use that. Which is what I did, and it works just fine. But for some reason I forgot all about shortcodes! With a shortcode, I could generate all the PHP in the functions file and then just call the shortcode when/where I want.

Okay, so lets show the completed PHP code:

function attendee_feed_print_2009() {
 global $wpdb;
 include_once( ABSPATH . WPINC . '/rss.php' );
 $rss = fetch_rss( 'http://www.eventbrite.com/rss/event_list_attendees/384870157' );
 $items = array_slice( $rss->items, 0 );
 if ( empty( $items ) ) echo '<ul style="list-style-type: none; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside;"><li>No items</li></ul>';

 else

 foreach ( $items as $item ) : ?>
 <ul style="list-style-type:none; list-style-image:none; list-style-position:outside; margin-bottom: 0px">
 <li><!--<strong><?php echo $item[ 'title' ]; //User name ?></strong><br />-->

 <?php echo $item[ 'content' ][ 'encoded' ]; ?>

 <hr style="border: 1px solid #ddd; margin-bottom: 8px" />
 </li>
 </ul>
 <?php endforeach;
}

Now, this code has to be changed for it to work as a shortcode. We’ll have to return the function and not print/echo it.

I also wanted to be able to use multiple instances of the code with different feeds. To do so I had to create a argument to extract from the completed short code. I found a demo at: Alex Mansfield’s post.

Remember this:

function attendee_feed_print_2009() {
 global $wpdb;
 include_once( ABSPATH . WPINC . '/rss.php' );
 $rss = fetch_rss( 'http://www.eventbrite.com/rss/event_list_attendees/384870157' );

We are going to update it to read as follows ( changes in bold ) :

function attendee_feed_print_2009( $rss_nbr ) {
 global $wpdb;
 extract( shortcode_atts( array( 'rss' => ''), $rss_nbr ) );
 include_once( ABSPATH . WPINC . '/rss.php' );
 $rss = fetch_rss( $rss );

And the final code with the fields updated to return the arguments ( put into your functions.php file ( in between <?php ?> ) ) :

function attendee_feed_print_2009( $rss_nbr ) {
  global $wpdb;
  extract( shortcode_atts( array( 'rss' => ''), $rss_nbr ) );
  include_once( ABSPATH . WPINC . '/rss.php' );
  $rss = fetch_rss( $rss );
  $items = array_slice( $rss->items, 0 );
  
  $rss_html = '<div id="eventbrite-attendee-list" style="clear:both;">';
  
  if ( empty( $items ) ) $rss_html .= '<ul style="list-style:none;"><li>No attendees, yet.</li></ul>';

  else

  foreach ( $items as $item ) :

  $rss_html .= '<ul style="background:none; list-style:none; margin:0px">';
  $rss_html .= '<li style="background:none; list-style:none;">';
  $rss_html .= $item[ 'content' ][ 'encoded' ];
    
  $rss_html .= '<hr style="border: 1px solid #ddd; margin-bottom: 10px" />';
  $rss_html .= '</li>';
  $rss_html .= '</ul>';
  
  endforeach;

  $rss_html .= '</div>';

  return $rss_html;
  }

And lets not forget to add the shortcode function!

add_shortcode( 'eventbrite-attendees', 'attendee_feed_print_2009' );

Final outcome with look like this `[eventbrite-attendees rss="http://your-rss-feed.com/"]`