Fright Attendant

Horror, psychology, and the anatomy of fear.

My Website Security & Users

September 23, 2026 by Alexander Barriga

Website security is extremely important, because even small websites like Fright Attendant can be targeted by automated attacks that probe for known weaknesses.

Protecting a WordPress site helps prevent unauthorized access, malicious software, and unwanted changes to site content. Several basic steps can improve security a ton.

First, I can use strong, unique passwords for every account. Second, I can keep WordPress, themes, and plugins updated so amny known security vulnerabilities are patched. Third, I can use SSL to encrypt information traveling between the website and a visitor’s browser. Security plugins such as Wordfence, WP Activity Log, and Login LockDown also help by scanning for threats, recording activity, and limiting repeated failed login attempts.

WordPress user roles help control how much access each person receives. As the Administrator, I can manage the entire website, including users, plugins, settings, and content. An Editor can manage content across the site, an Author can write, publish, and manage their own posts, a Contributor can write and submit posts for review, and finally, a Subscriber has no editorial control but can check out the site like a normal end-user.

Assigning these roles gives each user only the access needed for their responsibilities, which helps reduce unnecessary security risks. Together, these practices create a safer and more trustworthy experience for the site’s visitors.

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Blasting Off with Jetpack

by Alexander Barriga

Jetpack is a WordPress plugin that combines a large number of tools into one package.

Instead of focusing on any single feature, it has different modules that can help with writing, sharing, discussion, traffic, and security.

One useful area is Security. Jetpack includes tools related to backups, spam protection, and added security. These features could help protect the Fright Attendant site from unwanted activity and reduces the amount of maintenance needed.

Another useful area is Traffic. Traffic tools can help a site owner monitor how visitors interact with the website. This could make it easier to see which Fright Attendant posts attract the most attention and which topics readers seem more interested in.

A third but far from final useful area is Sharing. Jetpack includes social media integration tools that can make it easier for visitors to share content. For a blog, this could potentially help posts reach a wider audience without requiring visitors to manually copy and paste links.

Finally, the major overall advantage of Jetpack is that its modules can be enabled or disabled individually, which gives the site owner greater control over which features are actually being used.

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What I’ve Learned About Plugins

by Alexander Barriga

Plugins are one of the easiest ways to add useful little features to a WordPress site without having to build everything from scratch.

During this lesson, I used plugins for backups, analytics, caching, social sharing, spam protection, accessibility, annnnd contact forms.

When choosing plugins, it’s important to use safe and trusted sources. For this course, plugins tend to come from the official WordPress.org plugin directory. Before installing each one, I would check how recently it was updated, whether it was compatible with my version of WordPress (some were not), how many people use it, its ratings and reviews, and whether the developer still provides support. I would in the future be cautious about plugins with poor reviews, very few users, or long periods without updates. The text also recommends checking on popularity, support forums, changelogs, compatibility, and update history before installing a plugin. Kinda like mods for games on Steam, but in this case you’re installing mods for your website.

     Plugins can also be discovered through WordPress blogs, tutorials, reviews, support forums, and searches for a specific feature or problem. These can help narrow down possible choices before checking the plugin itself on WordPress.org.

     For my additional plugin, I chose WPForms Lite to add a working contact form to Fright Attendant. I also considered Contact Form 7 and Forminator, which are similar features. I ended up going with WPForms because its visual form builder was easy to set up and use within (a very well-advertised) 5 minutes. The contact form gives visitors a simple way to reach out to Site Admin and gives the website a useful feature that could later be expanded upon for feedback, questions, or submissions.

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