What can I do if my WordPress website was hacked, and how can I prevent it from happening again?

Try to keep cool and get ready to forgive, forget and move on — keep this mindset when your website gets hacked.

WordPress hacking is widespread, and it can be a scary episode if this is your first time going through the experience.

Why Me? Why My Website?

First, keep in mind that 99% of the time, the hacking or site breach is not personal.

I have found that in most cases, the attack is not even stemming from a human being but comes directly from software designed to target vulnerabilities in specific websites.

We could sit here and speculate all day on why anyone/thing would target your innocent website or blog for seemingly no reason at all. The majority of the time, the reason behind hack or website breach is to use your website to help spread spam links.

What Do I Do Now?

The good news is that your website hack was most likely grouped with similar websites using a similar setup (in this case, WordPress).

The damage you face is probably injected junk code into a series of one or more of your website files. While this is a total annoyance and can make your website behave in bizarre and unpredictable ways, it is a very common occurrence in which the problem can be quickly resolved.

If you have limited knowledge of website development. It’s best to reach out to your web hosting provider or a website maintenance service provider to remedy the situation and help put measures in place to try to ensure another hacking episode does not occur.

How Can I Prevent This From Happening In The Future?

Well, one of the best measures to protect your website from the more common WordPress hacks is installing a plugin by the name of Wordfence.

Wordfence is available as both a free and premium/paid plugin, but for the most part, the free version will get you by just fine.

Let’s address a few other quick tips to ensure you don’t wear a massive “hack my website” target on your back:

  1. Ensure you are using the most recent version of WordPress.
  2. Ensure your existing plugins are stable and updated.
  3. Ensure ModSecurity is enabled and active on your web hosting server (if applicable).
  4. Ensure your .htaccess file has the proper file read/write permissions (ask your hosting provider).
  5. Ensure your wp-content file directory has proper, secure read/write file permissions (ask your hosting provider).

Of course, these recommendations are not guaranteed; however, between using a security plugin such as Wordfence and ensuring you execute the 5 points mentioned above, it will be far less likely for your WordPress website to be the victim of a hack or exploit.

The “Development Friendly” blog originates from the collaborative contributions of web developers and website maintenance specialists who are based in Texas. They bring over 15 years of experience in providing website services to a diverse array of small and large companies, both locally and internationally. Are you interested in exploring a potential collaboration or do you need help with your website? Visit www.vessio.com or send an e-mail to help@vessio.com.

Posted

in

by

Development Friendly

  • The Power of Rate Limiting: Enhancing Website Traffic and Performance

    In the fast-paced digital landscape, where website traffic and user interactions are at an all-time high, ensuring optimal performance and security has become a critical concern for website administrators. One effective technique that can significantly improve both website traffic management and performance is rate limiting. Rate limiting is a method that controls the number of…

  • How do I Remove the “Save my name” Checkbox In WordPress?

    In WordPress, when users leave comments on your blog posts, they are often asked to provide their name, email address, and website. By default, WordPress includes a checkbox labeled “Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.” This checkbox allows users to have their information saved in cookies,…

  • How do you force SSL and fix mixed content with HTACCESS?

    So, you have a shiny new SSL certificate for your website, and now you need to force SSL, but you keep getting mixed content errors. This simple guide will consist of two parts and should get you up and running with a “green lock” in no time. Step 1 — You Need To Modify Your…

  • How do I reset all form fields using pure JavaScript?

    It doesn’t matter why you might want to add a reset form button for your users. It could be that the form has conditional logic, is super long, complex, or that it has form fields that are prone to user error. We will look at a straightforward way to add a form button to reset…

  • How do I create a simple news ticker using HTML and CSS?

    Alright, so you need some text, links, or images to scroll across your website from left to right. Some folks call this a “news ticker”, some call it a “text scroller” — we will stick with news ticker for the sake of keeping our references simple. Sure, you can make this happen with JavaScript but why complicate…

  • How do I make a textarea form field match an input form field?

    Have you ever wondered why the default font for a form textarea field is different when using a placeholder? The default fonts for all web forms are usually determined by the browser used, and technically, it is up to us to define what fonts or styles to display via our CSS. Here is how you…