Causes And Fixes To Save Your WordPress Website From Hacking

Causes And Fixes To Save Your WordPress Website From Hacking WPWebElite

Securing any website has become a task of daily routine. Nowadays, a website directory contains important data that needs a high level of security to be saved from the hands of malware attackers.

This presentation will let you know the common causes behind your hacked website and provide some WordPress Security tips that will prevent your WordPress Website from hacking and eventually improve WordPress Website Performance.

Why is Improving WordPress Website Security necessary?

A website is home to many important data and content. We firmly suggest you to always follow WordPress Development Coding standards to secure your website as well as improvise its performance.

With the advancing technology, there comes a need for a WordPress Development Service Provider to cope up with the challenging world. This becomes difficult when a hacker tries to disturb your IT infrastructure while breaking the security barriers.

Any website holds visitor’s personal information like IP address or Google account credentials. This raises a necessity to save them from being hacked and leaked publicly.

Hacking directly affects WordPress website performance.

If your website is hacked, you might see the following changes in your website Your files can auspiciously be submitted to PHP backdoors.

You will get a warning from your web host stating that your website contains malware.

You will get to see unknown pop-ups not created by your developers.

Your live files can be changed or modified.

Malware codes can be added to your coding database.

Your website can lead to many other defective websites.

Other restricted users can access your admin directory.

Your website can become a box of spamming pictures or posts.

Google may restrict your visitors from using your site with a warning of an unprotected website.

18 Causes and Fixes behind your hacked WordPress Website

Unsecured WP Directory

Unsecure Web Hosting It highly matters on your web hosting.

Hackers have an easy way to attack through your unsecured web hosting platforms.

Sometimes, the hosting provider assigns a single host to multiple websites, which increases the risk of ransomware attacks.

Weak Password Strength Passwords are the roots behind a great cause. Weak passwords work just as a simple task for a dedicated hacker. Any hacker can easily break passwords that are monotonous, using familiar characters, or are not case sensitive.

WordPress admin is the most vulnerable section. Hackers often try to access the paths to the WP admin directory. If they succeed, they can modify your files or even add malicious codes to your database.

Invalid File Permissions There will be multiple files and folders seeking some set of file permissions.

WordPress File permissions will let any user read, write or execute the file.

Incorrect file permissions will lead to the loss or leakage of significant data.

Plain FTP Protection

Un-Updated WordPress By not updating your WordPress website will invite many hackers as they can access your website’s bugs and flaws. Static WordPress files often lead to threats.

Inactive Plugins and Themes Just one defective plugin or theme can make your entire site vulnerable. Plugins are extended features and are applied to your website externally to improve your website’s functionality

To upload files to your website, you will need an FTP client to transfer files. Using a plain FTP will allow unauthorized users to read and decode the information as the password is sent unencrypted.

Weak Default WP Username and Admin URL Admin is the most common username for any WP administrator.

If you are using your admin username with this name, it is highly recommended to change it immediately.

Unchanged WordPress Table Prefix

Nulled Themes and Plugins Do not download the free plugins and themes from an unknown source.

Always hop onto the official website of WordPress to install your plugins.

Unsecured WordPress Configuration File Your website’s login identities are stored in WordPress configuration files wpconfig.php. If this file is not maintained correctly, you may involve a significant threat to your website.

When installing WordPress, you get your WordPress table prefix as wp_ by default. As this common prefix is easy to hack, this needs to be changed. You have an option to change the prefix and make it more unique.

Too Many Inactive Users During operating the back-end, there are several users for the website. If they actively use the admin panel, it does not create any issue. But if the admin is full of inactive users, they should immediately be removed, to prevent a chance for any hacker to enter through it.

Unsecured Website URL

Enabled File Editing There are multiple users involved while developing a website.

All the users must not be granted permission for every file editing unless needed. If any hacker manages to enter the admin directory through them, this will create a problem.

Losing Unbacked Up Data Keep your site and data up-to-date for which backup your sites regularly. This will help to restore your data after the attack. Your hosting provider offers the service of website backup.

Unsecured websites are a large source of malware resources.

Hackers are prone to hit your site if you don’t have an HTTPS URL.

No Security Plugin Security Plugins help your website to remain protected and secure from its confidential data. Sometimes repairing a hacked website can be more time and costconsuming.

Unsecured Debug Logs A debug log contains error information and database operations.

Hence it is trivial to secure your website debug log. It is advisable to secure your debug files by withdrawing the constant or setting it to false by default.

Unsecure Server Public servers are always an open-source network. If you try to login to your site using any open networks, you are eventually registering your IP address and other credentials into it. This leaked info is much easier for technocrats to use illegally.

Clean your Hacked Website After taking care of so many things, still, your website gets attacked, don’t panic and follow the steps to recover from the damage:

Identify Hack The first and foremost step is to identify the hack. For this, you will need to check few things to know the actual damage to the website:

1. Check the login access to your admin panel 2. Check the redirecting sites which direct from your website 3. Check any malware links on the website 4. Check Google status of security

Check With Your Hosting Company Host providers can help you in this situation.

Share your problem with the company, and they may analyze the problem thoroughly.

Restore From Backup Regularly backing up your site is not enough.

If you need to prevent hacking, restore your data regularly besides backup. This will lower the after-effect of hacking.

Malware Scan and Removal Most of the hackers upload their malware codes in the backdoor.

Hence even after malware removal, these files remain hidden in the backdoor.

Check User Permission

Change Passwords

Assign your admin permission to trusted users only. Delete any inactive users that may be a source for any hacker.

Change every password and make it a unique one. Weak passwords are a welcoming point for hackers.

Disable or restrict permission to your file directory. This can be done in the settings panel of your admin dashboard.

Check your password strength before confirming your password.

Strengthening Of WordPress Website Strengthen your website , for that, keep in mind the following things: 1. Install firewall protection 2. Install a security plugin 3. Disable plugin and themes editing 4. Restrict admin permissions 5. Limit your login attempts

Running a business online is itself a complex procedure involving a massive amount of resources. Keeping them safe becomes essential not to let your data leak into malicious hands. You can improve your WordPress website performance with this list of 18 fixes and prevent it from hacking.

If you’re not that confident with the technicalities of it all or lack the time, hiring a good agency for website maintenance or to remove the malware from the website is the good option. Let us know other security hacks besides mentioned in this blog in the comment section. I hope, by reading the above WordPress Security Tips, you will have more security of your WordPress Website.

How do you deal with your hacked WordPress website?

Mail us on biz@wpwebelite.com Follow us on Social Media: @wpwebelite