WordPress Blog Got Hacked? Get The Fastest Recovery Solution
From this article you’ll know how to troubleshoot and fix a WordPress site after being hacked. Originally posted by Lisa Smith on InstantShift. Lisa is a designer by profession and writer by choice, she writes for almost all topics but design and Fashion are her favourites. InstantShift is leading design and inspiration related community for web designers and developers daily resource, inspiration and premium web design and development. Image courtesy of Rawpixel.com via Bigstockphoto.
We believe this write up will be something interesting for you. Seldom, can one get an article or a blog on such issue which is definitely a rising problem for many people. Here, the discussion will completely be based on retrieving your WordPress blog, if gets hacked.
At first, let’s put a little brief about a WordPress blog. Though it is known to all yet there may be some readers who are not quite sure about this thing.
Blog writing is a new form of communitarian in the virtual space. Just like people read articles or editor’s column in a newspaper, in the same way a blog is an opinion expressed with an intention to make people aware of certain issues or sometimes it is just a self expression for some reading pleasure.
Now, WordPress is the most popular and the demanding platform for online blog writing. Almost half of the bloggers are into this medium for expressing their personal viewpoints about everything and anything.
Writing a blog is not just an expression but a way to educate people about variable elements. To be precise a blog is more about Infotainment. It has a mix of both information with a pinch of entertainment. Be it any news or events, blog covers everything.
In the recent years, the platform of WordPress is booming with great stories by some good and emerging authors. Each and every blogs are getting an overwhelming response from the people. Blogs are indeed the best vehicle for effective communication. The reach of any blog is huge and in no time it can connect the entire globe together to raise voice against an issue.
Communication is the vital need for human survival. Blogging will reach greater heights in the near future as nothing can disown the right of an individual to express his or her views and counter views.
What if your WordPress platform gets hacked?
Calm down and give a read to an easy solution.
One can ignore many things in social media but it is really impossible to ignore being hacked. This is something which is still a menacing issue in handling any online medium. It often happens that a WordPress accounts gets hacked leading to countless problems for the users.
There are many ways to secure your account but somewhere down the line hacking cannot be stopped. So it’s better to get some good idea on how to recover your account if gets hacked?
Before we tell you the steps in details, let me remind you that hacking is completely an illegal act and none should perform for any reason. Now let’s focus on the steps of recovery. Read it carefully and then apply.
Step-1: At first identify the hack
At first it is very important to identify the hack. This is the starting point of solving the issue. If you notice that the account got hacked then at first, note down certain important things about the hack. This is really an important one. The various elements that you first need to check are:
- Is there any difficulty to log in to your account? Check this at least for two times.
- Is WordPress getting connected to some other website?
- Can you find any unnecessary links in your account?
- At last is Google marking your site as insecure?
Well, these are certain elements that you should notice if there is an account hack. In this case one should definitely change his or her password to eliminate further damage.
Step-2: Check the hosting company
In such cases it is important to contact your hosting providers. The people out there are quite experienced with all such issues and can give you proper guidance. Both HostGator and Siteground give the best solution for such issues. The web hosting companies not only fix the problems but also give you some ideas to protect your server.
Step-3: Restoring backup
Always take a backup of every document that you have in your WordPress account. It may often happen that due to hacking, all your data are lost. To be on the safe side always keep a back up. At times it becomes very difficult to restore all your data.
Step-4: Scan once for malware threat
This is essential. At first you need to delete all the inactive WordPress themes and plug-ins. Over here, you will be introduced with a new term known as backdoor. It is referred to as bypassing normal authentication and gaining the ability to remotely access the server without being detected. After doing this particular thing go ahead and scan the entire website.
In this step you should install some free plug-in for some productive result. The two most popular plug-in are Sucuri WordPress Auditing and Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC).
Sucuri scanner will tell you about the status of every WordPress files. On the flip side it shows you the location of the hack.
Theme authenticity scanner helps in finding the various suspicious or malicious codes in your theme. The plug-in will highlight the theme file which has got infected. In this regard there are actually two options to fix the hack. One you can manually remove the code and secondly you can replace the original file.
Step-5: Checking the user permission
In this regard, you should keep in mind that you and your trusted team members have administrator access to the site. In case if you notice any suspicious user hovering around, delete them immediately.
Step-6: Changing the secret keys
WordPress generates various security keys which encrypts your password. It often happens that due to hacking if a user stole your password and they are logged in, then they will remain to be logged in as because the cookies are valid. In order to disable the cookies one should create a new set of secret keys. Securing new secret keys are the best way to get rid of such issues.
Step-7: Change your password again
It is necessary to change the password again. This is important due to some technical security reasons. In this regard it is highly recommended that you keep a strong password. Don’t just casually change the password for the sake of making a change but make a final change and come up with a new strong password which will give a better security protection.
Step-8: Build the site with better protection
It has already been said that backup is very much necessary in order to retrieve the files if gets hacked. Along with keeping a proper back up there are certain more things which you can use for a better protection on the security. Let’s highlight some of the interesting elements that you can apply for building up a strong account in WordPress.
- Setting up a proper Website Firewall and Monitoring System- As said earlier that Sucuri is the provider which protects your account before it gets hacked. This is an important monitoring system which keeps a track of every kind of threat.
- One can switch to Managed WordPress Hosting- There are various managed WordPress hosting companies which takes too long to keep your site secure. We recommend you to take Pagely and WP Engine for a better solution.
- One should disable all themes and Plug-in Editors- For a better protection, disable all the old themes and Plug-in editors. This is actually recommended by all the experts.
- A limit should be kept in login attempts- This is an important suggestion. You should always keep a basic limit for login attempts. To know more about login attempts one should do a detail study particularly based on this part.
- Keeping the admin directory safe – In order to protect your account in a better way, do keep an additional layer of password to your WordPress administration area.
Step-9: Identify what happened
Once you recover everything in your account. It is time to discover that how the hack took place? In this case, there are certain tools that you can use to know the history behind the hack. OSSECis a tool which can analyze your logs and point of the attack. This thing can give you the complete details of the hack. This step is not really a compulsion but it is highly recommended to undergo this step in order to know the details.
Step-10: Regular backup is a must
Now when you start afresh, it is necessary to keep a regular backup. All the documents, articles, information should be updated daily for the backup purpose. This will help you in retrieving all the files and folders during a discrepancy.
Well, these are the ten concrete steps that one should follow if an account gets hacked. There might be certain other process to go ahead in this particular case but the above mentioned steps are the best way to solve out this matter. Hacking is quite common and in the recent years it has become a matter of great significance. Everything in the online platform is somehow immune to get hacked. Though there are certain innovative technologies yet things are turning out to be worst.
There are various legal pathways to stop this action of getting hacked. Constant warnings are given to hackers but there is no such productive end result.
In order to curb the rate of hacking, various tools have been introduced. WordPress blog hacking is getting quite common in the recent items. There is frequent news of websites getting hacked.
So, if you think that there is something wrong in your account, try to fix it up by following the above ten steps. These will definitely help you in the process of recovering a hacked account.
Apart from following the above ten steps which are written after a complete research, one can seek the advice of a person who deals with such issues.
A WordPress blog is a self communication platform. Along with this, there are variable blog WordPress themes which help to make the communication better. Therefore a WordPress should always be kept under a proper scrutiny.
One can dictate anything which he or she feels like. There are no such restrictions. It might get hacked and leak out some vital information but the process of recovery is there and in no time your account will be back to normal.
Do give a read to this entire article as everything mentioned over here is beneficial for your own good.
