WordPress Hacked, How to Recover?
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:55 am
Creativemotions»WordPress Security»WordPress Hacked, How to Recover?
WordPress Hacked
Having a hacked WordPress site is undoubtedly one of the worst things that can happen to you. It is extremely stressful and affects your business, your online reputation , search results, traffic, and so much more.
A while back we talked about how to protect WordPress and increase security but what happens when it’s too late? How do you recover a hacked WordPress site?
In the following article, we will look at how to overseas chinese in worldwide data recover a hacked WordPress site.
A Note on Security and Maintenance of WordPress and its Plugins
In the last few months the number of hacked WordPress sites has increased. Not that WordPress is less secure than other CMS (Drupal, Joomla), the main problems are caused by the site owners themselves who do not keep the CMS and plugins updated or who use simple or easily understandable administration credentials (e.g. admin/password).
One of the main problems we encounter every day as a web agency are WordPress sites that are running outdated versions or using old or incompatible plugins. Many website owners don’t realize that, like all other software, WordPress and its plugins need to be updated to prevent a website from being hacked.
WordPress releases updates as soon as security issues are detected in the official versions, so keeping the core of the CMS updated is the first thing that must be done from a security perspective.
My WordPress site has been hacked, what should I do?
There are a number of things you can do immediately:
Keep calm
Don't rush into making changes as this can cause more harm than good. Keeping calm will allow you to take control of the situation more effectively.
Document what happened
Take a moment to document what happened. Write:
What can you see? What evidence is there that you have been hacked, such as your homepage being replaced with a new page, new links appearing, or your pages being redirected?
What version of WordPress and plugins are you using? Are they the latest versions available?
What actions have you taken recently? Installed a new plugin? Made a change to a theme?
This way you can create an “incident report” that could be valuable for you or a professional company to identify what happened and how to clean up the hacked site.
Create a backup
It may seem like a strange idea, but why would you want to back up a hacked site? Because even a compromised copy of your site will likely contain content and files that you don’t want to lose if something goes wrong when you try to clean up your site or if you decide to start a clean install from scratch.
Copying your image upload folder is also helpful because you won’t have to search for images you’ve used on your site again if you need them after cleaning.
Identify the Hack
It is important to identify which files on the hacked site have been compromised. To do this, you can use a variety of plugins, e.g. Sucuri Security Install the plugin then:
Use it to scan your site for harmful malware.
Check for core file integrity issues in the wp-admin, wp-include, and root folders.
Identify compromised files by seeing if they have been recently modified.
Check the list of recent user logins to see if passwords have been stolen or new users have been created without your knowledge.
Remove the Hack
Now that you have information about potentially compromised users and the presence of any malware, you can remove the malware from WordPress and restore your hacked site .
WordPress Files
Very rarely new files are added to the wp-admin and wp-include directories. So if you find something new in those directories, there is a high probability that it is malicious code.
WordPress hackers usually leave “backdoors” to get back into your site later. To hide them, they often embed them in files with similar names to WordPress core files and place them in different directories. Attackers can also inject backdoors into files like wp-config.php and directories like /themes/plugins and /uploads.
Check old WordPress installations and backups
If the infection is in your core CMS or plugin files, you can fix the problem by restoring any suspicious files with copies from the official WordPress repository.
For any custom or premium file (not in the official repository) open it with a text editor and remove any suspicious code .
Database
To remove a malware infection from your website database, use the database admin panel to log in.
Check for suspicious content. Look for common malicious PHP functions, such as eval , base64_decode , gzinflate , preg_replace , str_replace etc. and remove them manually, but be careful as these functions are also used by plugins for legitimate reasons, so be sure to test your changes.
Whenever you make any of the above changes, you should check that your site is still operational.
User Profiles
If you notice any unfamiliar users, remove them so WordPress hackers no longer have access. Change the passwords for all your user accounts, making sure to choose strong passwords. Unlike in the past, new versions of WordPress provide strong passwords.
WordPress Hacked
Having a hacked WordPress site is undoubtedly one of the worst things that can happen to you. It is extremely stressful and affects your business, your online reputation , search results, traffic, and so much more.
A while back we talked about how to protect WordPress and increase security but what happens when it’s too late? How do you recover a hacked WordPress site?
In the following article, we will look at how to overseas chinese in worldwide data recover a hacked WordPress site.
A Note on Security and Maintenance of WordPress and its Plugins
In the last few months the number of hacked WordPress sites has increased. Not that WordPress is less secure than other CMS (Drupal, Joomla), the main problems are caused by the site owners themselves who do not keep the CMS and plugins updated or who use simple or easily understandable administration credentials (e.g. admin/password).
One of the main problems we encounter every day as a web agency are WordPress sites that are running outdated versions or using old or incompatible plugins. Many website owners don’t realize that, like all other software, WordPress and its plugins need to be updated to prevent a website from being hacked.
WordPress releases updates as soon as security issues are detected in the official versions, so keeping the core of the CMS updated is the first thing that must be done from a security perspective.
My WordPress site has been hacked, what should I do?
There are a number of things you can do immediately:
Keep calm
Don't rush into making changes as this can cause more harm than good. Keeping calm will allow you to take control of the situation more effectively.
Document what happened
Take a moment to document what happened. Write:
What can you see? What evidence is there that you have been hacked, such as your homepage being replaced with a new page, new links appearing, or your pages being redirected?
What version of WordPress and plugins are you using? Are they the latest versions available?
What actions have you taken recently? Installed a new plugin? Made a change to a theme?
This way you can create an “incident report” that could be valuable for you or a professional company to identify what happened and how to clean up the hacked site.
Create a backup
It may seem like a strange idea, but why would you want to back up a hacked site? Because even a compromised copy of your site will likely contain content and files that you don’t want to lose if something goes wrong when you try to clean up your site or if you decide to start a clean install from scratch.
Copying your image upload folder is also helpful because you won’t have to search for images you’ve used on your site again if you need them after cleaning.
Identify the Hack
It is important to identify which files on the hacked site have been compromised. To do this, you can use a variety of plugins, e.g. Sucuri Security Install the plugin then:
Use it to scan your site for harmful malware.
Check for core file integrity issues in the wp-admin, wp-include, and root folders.
Identify compromised files by seeing if they have been recently modified.
Check the list of recent user logins to see if passwords have been stolen or new users have been created without your knowledge.
Remove the Hack
Now that you have information about potentially compromised users and the presence of any malware, you can remove the malware from WordPress and restore your hacked site .
WordPress Files
Very rarely new files are added to the wp-admin and wp-include directories. So if you find something new in those directories, there is a high probability that it is malicious code.
WordPress hackers usually leave “backdoors” to get back into your site later. To hide them, they often embed them in files with similar names to WordPress core files and place them in different directories. Attackers can also inject backdoors into files like wp-config.php and directories like /themes/plugins and /uploads.
Check old WordPress installations and backups
If the infection is in your core CMS or plugin files, you can fix the problem by restoring any suspicious files with copies from the official WordPress repository.
For any custom or premium file (not in the official repository) open it with a text editor and remove any suspicious code .
Database
To remove a malware infection from your website database, use the database admin panel to log in.
Check for suspicious content. Look for common malicious PHP functions, such as eval , base64_decode , gzinflate , preg_replace , str_replace etc. and remove them manually, but be careful as these functions are also used by plugins for legitimate reasons, so be sure to test your changes.
Whenever you make any of the above changes, you should check that your site is still operational.
User Profiles
If you notice any unfamiliar users, remove them so WordPress hackers no longer have access. Change the passwords for all your user accounts, making sure to choose strong passwords. Unlike in the past, new versions of WordPress provide strong passwords.