My WordPress is Hacked

It is always a good idea to secure your WordPress setup, however you forgot and you just realized that your WordPress CMS has been hacked. But how do you know it has been hacked? Some hacked WordPress website you can visually confirm that you indeed have been hacked, but there are times that you cannot. Here’s a brief checklist of some “tell, tell” signs that you have been hacked:

1. Analytics – If you have Google Analytics installed, you can usually tell by just logging into it and looking at the type of traffic you are receiving. At times, it can be one of the best indicators. Sudden drop in website traffic .

2. Bad Links – This is a fairly clear indication that you have been hacked. If you see “spam” like links all over the website and you delete these links and they tend to come back, you have been hacked.

3. Your homepage indicates a hack – Yes, some hackers will simply claim your website and openly advertise that it has been hacked.

4. Unable to login to WordPress – If you can’t get back into your Dashboard of your WordPress setup, very good indicator that you have been compromised.

5. Unusual User Accounts – If you go under your Users area, and you see random accounts and if you happen to notice one of them has Administrator access, there is a good chance that the hacker managed to get into your database and claimed administrator user access.

6. Unknown scripts and plugins – Under your plugins area if you notice a plugin that you know you did not install, chances are hacker did. Also, it is a good idea to log into your website via FTP and look around at your files to see if there are some new ones that you know you haven’t uploaded or installed.

7. Slow or unresponsive website – Nothing to add here.

You might have a different sign that is telling you that your website had been hacked. The 7 examples above are by no means the only way to tell, they are however the most common ways to find out if you have been hacked or not.