Protection against a critical Joomla security bug

The authors of the Joomla software announced today that every version of Joomla between 3.2.0 and 3.4.4 has a critical security bug that allows hackers to take over a site (the bug is known as “CVE-2015-7857”).

The best solution for Joomla users is to update to version 3.4.5 immediately. However, we’ve also added a rule to our servers to protect our customers until they do this. The rule should ensure that if you use our hosting service, “hackers” won’t be able to take advantage of this bug.

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PHP 7.0.0RC5 experimentally available

The PHP developers are about to release a major update to PHP, version 7.0.

The main new feature (as far as most of our customers will be concerned) is vastly improved performance. Our testing shows it can run WordPress sites around twice as quickly, lowering the site’s CPU resource usage significantly. Sites that use it will be able to handle close to twice as many visitors per second.

Although a “stable” version of PHP 7 has not yet officially been released, a “release candidate” preview version is available, and we’ve installed that on our servers for customers who want to test it.

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PHP 5.5.30 and 5.6.14

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.5.30 and 5.6.14 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded PHP 5.5 and 5.6 on our servers as a result.

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PHP 5.4.45, 5.5.29 and 5.6.13

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.4.45, 5.5.29 and 5.6.13 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded PHP 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 on our servers as a result.

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PHP 5.4.44, 5.5.28 and 5.6.12

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.4.44, 5.5.28 and 5.6.12 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded PHP 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 on our servers as a result.

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Small change to SSL ciphers

We’ve made a small technical change to the way our servers handle SSL connections. The change shouldn’t affect anyone, but we’re describing it here just for the record. If you have an SSL site with us and see any unexpected behavior, don’t hesitate to let us know.

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PHP 5.4.43, 5.5.27 and 5.6.11

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.4.43, 5.5.27 and 5.6.11 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded PHP 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 on our servers as a result.

In addition, ionCube Loader has been updated to the current version 5.0.14.

These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact us.

PHP 5.4.42, 5.5.26 and 5.6.10

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.4.42, 5.5.26 and 5.6.10 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded PHP 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 on our servers as a result.

In addition, ionCube Loader has been updated to the current version 5.0.10.

These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Our servers are compatible with 2015 and 2016 PayPal security upgrades

Recently, PayPal has been sending notifications to merchants who use the “PayPal API”, discussing some changes they’re making. If you are one of our customers and you have received this e-mail from PayPal, you may be wondering if you need to do anything. The short answer is that you don’t; the change is being made entirely on the PayPal servers, and our service is fully compatible.

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PHP 5.4.41, 5.5.25 and 5.6.9

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.4.41, 5.5.25 and 5.6.9 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded PHP 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 on our servers as a result.

In addition, ionCube Loader has been updated to the current version 5.0.6.

These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact us.