{"id":2658,"date":"2013-04-24T17:00:42","date_gmt":"2013-04-24T17:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/2013\/04\/24\/tac-plugin\/"},"modified":"2021-08-16T23:15:02","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T03:15:02","slug":"tac-plugin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/","title":{"rendered":"WordPress Theme Authenticity Checker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"alert alert-danger\">As of August 12, 2020, the Theme Authenticity Checker\u00a0<strong>hasn\u2019t been tested with the latest major releases of WordPress<\/strong>. We are working to find and review an alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When working on your WordPress site, you will discover there are many many themes available. WordPress has a nice stack available from within the admin interface itself, but you will soon discover that there are thousands of free themes are all over the web spread across hundreds of sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These sites, while having free content, can also be the culprit in placing unwanted or malicious links on your site. Luckily, there is a plugin that will scan any them you upload and tell you whether it has malicous code or hidden links in it. This is known as the Theme Authenticity Checker. Follow along below as we show you how it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Using the Theme Authenticity Checker in WordPress<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"article_list wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/logging-into-wordpress-dashboard\/\">Logging into your WordPress Dashboard<\/a>. <div style=\"clear: both;\">\u00a0<\/div> <\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/install-wordpress-plugins\/\">Install the plugin named Theme Authenticity Checker<\/a>. <div style=\"clear: both;\">\u00a0<\/div> <\/li><li>Once it is installed, you may go out to the web to find a free theme to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/install-wordpress-plugins\/\">download and install<\/a>. <div style=\"clear: both;\">\u00a0<\/div> <\/li><li>Once you have located and downloaded a theme, upload it to your WordPress site. <div style=\"clear: both;\">\u00a0<\/div> <\/li><li><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"159\" height=\"236\" src=\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/edu_wordpress_339_click-TAC.png\" class=\"optimized-lcp-image\" alt=\"click the TAC link\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\"> \u00a0 Next, go to Appearance and then find TAC. Click that to run the Theme Authenticity Checker. \u00a0 <\/li><li><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Click here to view the larger image\" class=\"std_ss\" style=\"float: right; margin: 0px 0px 15px 15px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/edu_wordpress_339_found-code.png\" alt=\"found encryption in theme\"> \u00a0 The Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) will scan all themes on the site and give a quick review on what it finds. In our sample, you can see that it found encrypted code in one of the themes. Generally, you will want to delete themes that show up with encrypted code or links that the checker believes to be bad. In this specific case, however, the encrypted code was simply due to the creator encrypting their theme template for security. No malicious code was found, but it did have a couple of additional links added to the footer for sponsor websites.<div style=\"clear: both;\">\u00a0<\/div> <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Themes that come directly from WordPress are always fine and pass the check, so use the Theme Authenticity Checker plugin to check any plugins you find off of the web. This can help minorly with your website security by preventing malicious code and inadvertently giving backlinks to unauthorized sponsors.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Become a master of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/\">WordPress plugins<\/a>! Protect, optimize, secure, and expand the functionality of your website easily with the help of WordPress plugins!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As of August 12, 2020, the Theme Authenticity Checker\u00a0hasn\u2019t been tested with the latest major releases of WordPress. We are working to find and review an alternative. When working on your WordPress site, you will discover there are many many themes available. WordPress has a nice stack available from within the admin interface itself, but<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/\"> Read More ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4379],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plugins"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>WordPress Theme Authenticity Checker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Use the Theme Authenticity Checker to scan your WordPress themes for malicious code, unwanted links, and encryption. Learn how with this article.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WordPress Theme Authenticity Checker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Use the Theme Authenticity Checker to scan your WordPress themes for malicious code, unwanted links, and encryption. Learn how with this article.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"InMotion Hosting Support Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/inmotionhosting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-04-24T17:00:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-08-17T03:15:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/edu_wordpress_339_click-TAC.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scott Mitchell\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@InMotionHosting\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@InMotionHosting\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scott Mitchell\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Scott Mitchell\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/#\/schema\/person\/d850efb28ef3573db7d24b0d8fa9eaed\"},\"headline\":\"WordPress Theme Authenticity Checker\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-04-24T17:00:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-17T03:15:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/\"},\"wordCount\":365,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/edu_wordpress_339_click-TAC.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"WordPress Plugins\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/\",\"name\":\"WordPress Theme Authenticity Checker\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/plugins\/tac-plugin\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/edu_wordpress_339_click-TAC.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-04-24T17:00:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-17T03:15:02+00:00\",\"description\":\"Use the Theme Authenticity Checker to scan your WordPress themes for malicious code, unwanted links, and encryption. 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