Take note if you’re blogging on the WordPress Platform, a cracker has introduced a security exploit into one of the WordPress 2.1.1 download servers at WordPress.org, which could potentially open security holes in your installation.

For the WordPress development team to label this as a “WordPress 2.1.1 Dangerous, Upgrade” hints at the severity of this.

WordPress upgrades can involve some pain, especially if your existing plugins may not be fully compatible with the new code.

As always:

• Backup your blog content (the most important step)
• Deactivate your plugins
• Do the installation
• Reactivate plugins
• Ensure that the blog is working as it should
• Do another data backup

Yes, some of the steps seems repetitive, but it could potentially take much longer recovering from a crash.

For more information, you can check out:

• Lorelle’s Emergency Update Notification for WordPress 2.1+
• Dougal Campbell’s Important: Upgrade to WordPress 2.1.2
• Donncha O Caoimh’s You didn’t hear? Upgrade now!