How to tell if Your WordPress Website has been hacked
WordPress websites are a target of many hackers. Being hacked is the nightmare no webmaster wants to deal with. This is because being hacked means many things. It may mean that your clients’ data has been linked, your online reputation is being tarnished, your business secrets are being leaked and so many things. This is why understanding the sign of a hacked WordPress website is very important. These signs are as follows.
Sudden drop in your web traffic
If the Google Analytics report that your traffic has dropped significantly and suddenly, this is the first sign that you have been hacked. There are so many Trojans and malware that hijack the traffic of a website and redirect to spammy websites. A drop in traffic may also be a result of Google’s safe browsing tool that may be alerting users of the warnings to your website. Being hacked may impact your only reputation and this may cause your website to be among the 20,000 weekly websites that are blacklisted by Google for malware or the 50,000 weekly websites blacklisted for phishing.
Bad links on your website
Data injection is an obvious sign of being hacked. This is done by hackers who build backdoors on your WordPress website. They use the back door to modify your database. The back door may be used to add bad links, spammy websites and also to delete the quality links. You have to fix this problem fast else it will cause you to be blacklisted by Google and other search engines.
Defaced homepage
This is a no brainer. If your homepage has been defaced, you have been hacked. Most hackers will not deface your homepage because they want to be unnoticed for the longest time possible. However, if you notice changes to your homepage or any other page, changes you never made, you have been hacked. Often, hackers who deface the homepage do so to extort money from the owner of the website.
Unable to login
If you are using the right log in credentials and are not able to login, there is a chance that your website has been hacked and the hacker deleted or changed the admin account. In this case, you will be locked out of your website.
Suspicious user accounts
It is always good to go through your user accounts. If you open the user registration and find the registration of accounts you never created, you have been hacked. The good news is that you can easily delete the spam registrations.
Slow or unresponsive website
There are some hackers who create too many requests to the server on which your website sits on. In this case, your website will be very slow or even unresponsive. The website may even be unavailable. In this case, you should start by checking the server logs. Identify the IPs that are making too many requests and block them.
There are so many other signs that will help you know you have been hacked. It is wise to always take action immediately. Make use of the WordPress security guides and keep your website clean. Seek expert help whenever you are stuck.