August 18, 2026 — They didn’t guess the password. They didn’t break 2FA, bypass the firewall, or trigger a single alert. The activity log shows no failed attempts, no unusual login times, no new accounts created. And yet, the attacker is inside your WordPress site, accessing your WordPress dashboard. Session hijacking leaves no login trace, because the attacker never logged in. They took an authentication cookie and reused an existing session. To WordPress, every request looks legitimate; the real user’s credentials, their 2FA, their login restrictions, none of it applies. The session was already authenticated. Most WordPress security advice is built around hardening and protecting, however, that leaves a critical blind spot: what happens after authentication succeeds? In this talk, we’ll walk through how WordPress creates and validates authentication cookies and session tokens, explore the real-world scenarios where sessions get stolen, and map out what an attacker can do with a hijacked session before the damage becomes visible. Then we’ll get practical. We will look into how session visibility, timeout policies, concurrent login controls, device recognition, and activity logging that captures post-login behaviour are the controls that catch what firewalls and 2FA miss. Firewalls, 2FA, and passkeys are essential. This talk covers what comes after them.

September 30, 2025 — While much of the focus in WordPress security is on website hardening measures, the reality is that users often represent the weakest link in the chain. In this session, I demonstrate how a small selection of free WordPress plugins and complementary tools can be used to implement practical, user-focused security measures. Attendees will learn how to support their users in adopting secure practices, ultimately helping to protect both user accounts and the wider website environment.