The increasing number of hacker attacks on the WordPress blogging platform deeply concerns us. The Web Security Tools Plugin for WordPress was created by Mr. Ralph Ritoch when his own WordPress site got hacked. Because of this, he developed a plugin for WordPress to reclaim his site from hacker control. The plugin removes all of the infections and protect the site from future attacks. He made it his mission to share the plugin to the public so that we would all be protected.

To date, Web Security Tools Plugin has been protecting over three thousand WordPress users. Please do not let one bad complaint from someone who has no detailed knowledge of how the plugin really works to imperil the rest of your users and the internet itself. We are aware that some of your plugins and themes in the repository do contain severe security threats which make it easy for hackers to break into our WordPress blogs. With the current version, a bad sever configuration can make it possible for hackers to manipulate the Web Security Tools, and a bad server configuration threatens every web application or plugin regardless of whether the Web Security Tools Plugin is present or not. Knowing that the web security tools plugin can stop almost any PHP Virus, why won't you publish it?

You removed Web Security Tools from your repository because of a perceived security threat? The security threat is not caused by the plugin, but is caused by improper configuration of a web server. Web servers are designed by default to deliver multiple types of content. Often, this content is evaluated by the file extension. The normal behavior of web servers and web browsers is that when an unsupported file extension or mime-type is seen, the result is not executed but is displayed as a text file or downloaded. It would take extra effort to break this normal behavior and make invalid file extensions dangerous which is the responsibility of the web hosting provider, and NOT the responsibility of web application developers. Yes, Web Security Tools plugin contains live viruses and .htaccess malwares ‘protected‘ by naming the files with an invalid file extension specifically designed to ensure that not only can users easily add virus definitions, but also to ensure that hackers cannot use these virus definition files themselves to attack the site. Mr. Ralph Ritoch has even provided you with a solution where the plugin can be improved to combat this potential threat caused by a bad server configuration. This plugin is clearly protecting everyone except hackers!

I call on you to act on this matter. Please do not make it harder for your users to have a secure blogging platform which we do get from the Web Security Tools plugin. Please restore the plugin back in the WordPress repository so that WordPress users can more easily locate this plugin, and receive the benefits of update notifications.