How to Fix Hacked WordPress Site

Nowadays, a lot of WordPress-running websites are getting hacked day by day. These attacks and site hacking are increasing due to a lack of good knowledge of using the plugins available. Many beginner developers take fewer security measures while making a website on WordPress.So, you should always have knowledge on How to Fix Hacked WordPress Site.

We know getting a WordPress site hacked is the most stressful thing using the website. In the future, if your site gets hacked, then don’t panic; just follow the given steps in our article. Moreover, this article will help you know how the WordPress site is hacked, Why the WordPress site keeps getting hacked, and How to Fix Hacked WordPress Site.

Signs that your WordPress site is hacked

This question often arises, How to check whether my WordPress site is hacked or not? Indeed, in this article, we will show the signs of a WordPress site being hacked. Not only is WordPress hacked, but there are more things like content thieves in WordPress: Easy Way to Find and Remove Stolen Content in WordPress

1. Your Website Traffic goes down suddenly.

2. Many types of Bad links are added to your WordPress website.

3. Website Homepage may have a defense message saying, “Your site is hacked”.

4. You will not be able to login into your WordPress website.

5. Lots of suspicious user accounts are seen in your WordPress.

6. Different types of unknown files and scripts in the server.

7. Loading speed becomes slow or unresponsive.

8. Unknown activity in Server logs

9. You won’t be able to send or receive WordPress emails.

10. Many types of suspicious scheduled tasks.

11. Search results are hijacked.

12. Unknown pop-ups of ads on your website.

13. Visitors are redirected to unknown websites.

Ways to Fix Hacked WordPress Site

We will talk about the ways to fix a hacked WordPress website step by step:

1. Don’t panic

2. Keep your site in maintenance mode

3. Reset all your website passwords.

4. Update all your plugins and themes

5. Remove all the users from the website

6. Clear all the unwanted files

7. Keep a backup

8. Add a temporary password login to your site

1. Don’t Panic

When you see your website being hacked, you will panic. However, panic is not the option, so clear your head at first. In addition, start to diagnose the problem and try to fix the problem. 

If you cannot do anything, just put the website in maintenance mode and leave it until you are cam.

2. Keep your site in maintenance mode

If you feel your site is hacked, then keep your site in maintenance mode is the best option:

-You may not get to log in after some time

-Visitors may be directed to another website.

3. Reset all your website password.

You may not know who hack the website, it is important to change all of your website passwords and remove all the users as soon as possible.In addition, reset your SFTP password, database password, and hosting provider.

4. Update all your plugins and themes

Now, you have to make sure that all of your website plugins and themes are up to date until now.

You can go to Dashboard>Updates in your site and update all the plugins and themes.

5. Remove all the users from the website

The first thing you have to look into is the admin accounts because the hacker may have added itself as admin and done the changes.

If there is any account that you don’t recognize, then remove that account.

6. Clear all the unwanted files

At first, install any security plugin like WordFence or Sucuri to check the WordPress installation files is changed or not.

If you find any unwanted or suspicious files, then delete it directly.

7. Keep a backup

Always keep your site backup because you may need to restore all the things the time of your website crashes or is hacked.

Meanwhile, you can compare your corrupted file on your website to the backup of the site. In other words, if the files are changed, then your website is hacked.

8. Add a temporary password login to your site

We all recommend you create a temporary password to protect your site. likewise, This is the way to make it safe to update all your plugins and themes. 

Fixing a Backdoor in a Hacked WordPress site.

The backdoor is a process of adding code to a website that will allow a hacker to access the server without coming on the radar. Hackers can log in to your website, but you won’t be able to find any changes.

Nowadays, using of the backdoor is increasing day by day. After that, why you should always check your site daily.

There are many ways to scan and fix backdoor code in your website:

1. Comparing checksum

First, compare the checksums. It is used to find about the file integrity. We can do a manual inspection, but there are many automatic tools that are available for plugins and themes. In addition, you may be able to maintain a personal blacklist. After the checksum, check the checksum values manually.

2. Core files integrity

After the checksum, you have to download the installation files of your WordPress site.So that the files can be verified using the command prompt:

$ Mkdir WordPress

$cd WordPress

Now, a directory is created named WordPress, and download the new file from the offical WordPress site.

$wget https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/archive/4.9.8.zip 

$ tar -zxvf 4.9.8.zip

After download completed of the latest version of WordPress using the above code. Second-line will extract the downloaded file. Above all, run this command: $ diff -r path/to/your/file.php /Wordpress/wp-cron.php; it will compare the difference between the two files. If you find a difference in the files, delete them and remove the backdoors.

3. Encodings

Sometimes all the files may be modified but you cannot read it. Then, user can start WordPress backdoor hack cleanup by looking for base64 encodings.

find . -name “*.php” -exec grep “base64″‘{}’\; -print &> output.txt

This command will give you all the base64 detections in output.txt.Now, you can search for .php changed by *.php in code. Moreover, you can check hex format using grep -Pr”[\x01\x02\x03]”.

4. Use of WordPress Backdoor Scanner

The human may make errors while checking. Therefore, manual inspecting may increase the problem. As a result, Making the solution using WordPress Backdoor Scanner will be best. There are many advanced tools in the market to check the hidden WordPress backdoor location and steps to remove the backdoor.

Final Thoughts

Keeping your WordPress installation up to date is one of the most critical things you can do to secure your WordPress site. WordPress distributes new versions of the software on a regular basis, and each new release contains security updates for newly found vulnerabilities. Keeping your WordPress installation up to date can defend your site from the most recent security risks.

We hope this tutorial has aided you in getting started on repairing and securing your hacked WordPress site! Please get in touch with us if you require more assistance with cleaning up your WordPress site or making it more secure.