When Being Helpful Backfires!

Your website’s security should be of paramount importance to companies offering managed hosting plans. Not communicating the introduction of added features to your site’s control panel can cause customers to panic. Letsweb will keep your site’s defences up at all times and will always let you know of any changes.

Unfortunately, GoDaddy got it very wrong:

(Excerpt from wptavern.com – full blog post here.)

Those who use a Managed WordPress hosting plan from either GoDaddy or MediaTemple might have noticed a new addition to the WordPress Dashboard. If you saw a bright orange button with the text Help Me, it wasn’t a hack, but is part of the SIDEKICK plugin. However, at least one customer thought it was a hack and published a concerning post in the Advanced WordPress Facebook group.

I’ve just logged into WordPress and I see a bright orange “HELP ME” icon with a strange face icon next to it in the bottom left of my dashboard – and a message saying “Need help with WordPress? Click HELP ME…” at the top of the screen! What is that?! Have I just been hacked? There’s no way I’m clicking on that without checking what it is!?!

The orange icon noticed is related to the SIDEKICK plugin. After clicking the button, it gives customers an opportunity to watch WordPress training videos from within the dashboard.

The post generated a healthy discussion with several people weighing in including representatives from GoDaddy, MediaTemple, and SIDEKICK. The project manager in charge of the blunder also participated in the discussion and promptly apologized for his actions.