The sad reality of running websites is that they can sometimes be hacked. We’ve experienced many WordPress site hack issues, so we know how frustrating it can be. Not to mention the influence it will have on your company and readership. Over the past few years, we have assisted hundreds of individuals, including numerous well-known businesses, in recovering their hacked WordPress sites.
Despite your best efforts, has your WordPress-hosted website been hacked? Unfortunately, despite all of the technology and WordPress security features, no website is totally protected from being WordPress hacked by professional hackers.
But, did you know that as a website owner, you may take actions to repair or clean up your hacked WordPress site, as well as determine if your site has been hacked? Let’s see how it goes!
Justhyre has spent years assisting WordPress administrators in identifying and repairing hacked websites. This blog is created to help WordPress owners through the process of recognizing and clearing a WordPress hack. This is not intended to be an all-inclusive guide, but if followed, it should help address 70% of the illnesses we see. In this article, we will walk you through the process of repairing your hacked WordPress site.
What to Do Before Your WordPress Site Is Hacked?
Let’s begin with the preventative actions you should take to keep hackers out of your WordPress site.
- The most recent version of WordPress should be installed.
WordPress reports that only 64.9 percent of sites have the most recent version of WordPress installed, while 36.1 percent do not. Because WordPress powers millions of websites, this poses a substantial security risk to a significant number of them. The complicated updating procedure of WordPress is to blame for the fact that so many websites aren’t updated. WordPress, you see, makes minor and major releases of their software.
- Always keep backups.
While many people understand the need of backing up their websites, the majority of them fail to do so.
No matter how many security precautions you take, there is still a possibility that your WordPress website will be hacked. And if your website has been attacked by hackers who insert their own dangerous code and data, there’s a chance it won’t be able to recover.
- Install the most effective WordPress security plugins.
WordPress is extremely secure in general. Many of the plugins and sophisticated themes that you install on it, however, are not. These provide the doorway that hackers are seeking within your website. Before you realize it, your website has been compromised and blacklisted by Google.
As a result, it’s critical to scan your WordPress sites for malware and other malicious code on a frequent basis. Furthermore, it is critical to continuously check your website for any incoming threats. Installing a WordPress security plugin is required for this.
After Your WordPress Site Has Been Hacked, What Should You Do?
- Determine the Hack
You’re under a lot of pressure when dealing with a website hack. Try to stay cool and document whatever you can about the hack.
A useful checklist to go through is as follows:
- Can you access your WordPress administration panel?
- Is your WordPress website redirected to another site?
- Are there any shady connections on your WordPress site?
- Is Google flagging your website as unsafe?
- Make a list since it will help you when you talk to your hosting company or when you follow the instructions below to fix your site.
It is also critical that you change your passwords before beginning the cleanup. When you’re through clearing up the hack, you’ll also need to update your passwords.
- Check with your hosting provider.
In these instances, most reputable hosting companies are really helpful. They have experienced employees who deal with these kinds of issues on a daily basis, and they are familiar with their hosting environment, so they can better help you. Begin by contacting your site hosting provider and following their instructions.
If you are on shared hosting, the hack may have compromised more than just your site. Your hosting company may also be able to offer you further information regarding the hack, such as how it occurred, where the backdoor is located, and so on.
- Backup and restore
If you have backups for your WordPress site, it may be advisable to restore from a time before the site was hacked. If you can do this, you’ll be OK. If you have a blog with daily material, you risk losing blog articles, fresh comments, and so on. In such instances, assess the benefits and drawbacks.
In the worst-case scenario, if you don’t have a backup and your website has been hacked for a long time and you don’t want to lose the material, you can manually delete the hack.
- Malware Removal and Scanning
Examine your WordPress installation and remove any inactive WordPress themes and plugins. This is frequently where hackers hide their backdoor.
A backdoor is a way of circumventing conventional authentication and gaining remote access to the system while remaining undiscovered. The backdoor is always the first thing that smart hackers do. This enables them to reclaim access even after you have discovered and removed the vulnerable plugin. After you’ve done that, go ahead and search your website for hacks.
- Examine the User Permissions
Examine the WordPress users area to ensure that only you and your trusted team members have administrator access to the site. If you notice a strange user, delete them.
- Alter Your Secret Keys
WordPress generates a set of security keys that encrypts your passwords since version 3.1. If a user steals your password and is still logged in to the site, they will stay logged in since their cookies are still valid. To turn off the cookies, you must generate a fresh set of secret keys. You must create a new security key and include it in your wp-config.php file.
- Change your passwords yet again
You did, indeed, reset the passwords in step 1. Do it once more! You must update your WordPress password, cPanel / FTP / MySQL password, and any other passwords that you have used in the past. We strongly advise you to use a strong password.
How Justhyre can help you fix hacked WordPress sites?
Is the website down? Hacked? Reach out to us we will help you for sure.
A hack might be one of the most annoying experiences you can have while online. Taking a pragmatic approach, like most things, can help you keep your sanity. While simultaneously attempting to leave as little of an impact as possible on the concerns.
If your WordPress website has been hacked, you can take help from Justhyre to remove a large portion of the harmful code from your site. Our engineers are capable of handling and restoring hacked WordPress websites.
After securing your site, we compare your modified files to the original WordPress core files as well as the original versions of WordPress themes and plugins in the repository.
Final Words
With an increasing number of websites being hacked or infiltrated, website owners must learn to remain cool and complete the entire process of website cleaning and restoration to avoid a future security breach. If you have any queries about a hacked WordPress site, please connect with us to get rid of that.