Your Site Has Been Hacked,
Now What?
Michele Butcher
CantSpeakGeek.com WPSecurityLock.com
@Michele_Butcher
Slides can be found at: http://mlb.pw/WCSD2015
@Michele_Butcher
WordPress Specialist at
WP Security Lock
Head Geek at Can’t
Speak Geek
Sometimes a designer of pretty
websites and graphics
Southern Illinois Meetup Co-Organizer
Beginners and Intermediate WordPress
Instructor at John A Logan College
Michele Butcher
@Michele_Butcher
What do you do when
your site gets hacked?
@Michele_Butcher
First option:
Pay someone else to clean it.
There are many options out there who will
clean your site. Here is who I suggest.
WP Security Lock
https://wpsecuritylock.com
Sucuri Security
http://sucuri.net/
@Michele_Butcher
Hack Repair
http://hackrepair.com
Second Option:
Clean it yourself
• Cheapest
• Most time consuming
• No one knows your site better than you do
• You just have to know what to look for
I do not suggest this if you are not comfortable
reading HTML, PHP, and CSS. @Michele_Butcher
When cleaning your site, add
clean copies of core, your
theme and your plugins. It
makes cleaning so much
easier.
@Michele_Butcher
This is a good time to make
an audit of everything on
your site and delete what is
not being used. You can
always add other themes
and plugins back later when
you need it.
@Michele_Butcher
Now you have all the malware
removed, that does not mean we are done
@Michele_Butcher
Check your users!
• You could have unwanted users
• Delete the unwanted guests immediately
• if you use “admin” as a username, delete it and
make a new user name
• Delete all users that are no longer using your
dashboard (Old devs, designers, guests)
• Only give others the access they need, not what
they want. A guest blogger should never be an
admin, only a contributor.
@Michele_Butcher
Check your FTP accounts
on your server
You could have unwanted users here as well
@Michele_Butcher
Check your File Permissions
Files should be 644
Directories should be 755
@Michele_Butcher
Add some Security to your site
• iThemes Security or iThemes Security Pro
• Jetpack (BruteProtect and VaultPress)
• WordFence
• Sucuri Firewall
Some trusted plugins
@Michele_Butcher
Change your login
information
• WordPress Logins and passwords
• cPanel Logins and passwords
• Database logins and passwords
(Remember to change them in your wp-config.php)
• Hosting Logins and passwords
@Michele_Butcher
When it comes to usernames and
passwords, here are a few tips.
• NEVER use “admin” as a username and
“password”as the password. NEVER on
anything!
• The harder a password is to remember, the
harder is to hack
• Use something like LastPass, 1Password, or
KeyPass to store your passwords
@Michele_Butcher
What do you do to not get
hacked again?
@Michele_Butcher
First and most important!
UPDATE
UPDATE
UPDATE
Update core, update plugins, update themes!
@Michele_Butcher
A note on updating
If you use a theme and/or plugin that was
purchased from Envato, Theme Forest, or Code
Canyon please mark the box under each
purchased item on the download page to be
notified by email of updates. That is the only way
they notify their customers of updates.
This is part of the reason the RevSlider Soak Soak
infection was so high.
@Michele_Butcher
Pay attention to WordPress
news and security sites
• WP Tavern
• WP Security Bloggers
• Sucuri Blog
• WP Security Lock
• Advanced WordPress (Facebook)
• Twitter
@Michele_Butcher
Only use trusted and
supported themes and plugins
Do NOT use a theme or plugin
• That has not been updated in more than a
year
• No one is responding in the support forums
• If it shows that it does not work in the
current version of core
@Michele_Butcher
Start Making Backups
• Backup Buddy
• BackWPUp
• VaultPress (Jetpack)
• Check with your hosting company to see if they do
backups as well
• iThemes Security (free and Pro) will do database
backups
@Michele_Butcher
Speaking of backups…
Save them somewhere other than your server.
Most have options to send them to an Amazon
S3 account, Dropbox, email, or download to
your machine.
@Michele_Butcher
Lastly, be active with your site. You
know your site best. If something
does not feel right, look into it.
Also, do not ignore your website.
No one likes a zombie website.
@Michele_Butcher