Why does WordPress get hacked? What steps/measures does Mavlers take to prevent it?

You have been burning the midnight oil, toiling away at your whiteboard, coming up with that one product/service idea that will not just rake in the millions but also solve the pain points of many businesses or end consumers.

Once you have that million-dollar idea, you begin crafting a stellar website that will do justice to your product/service and present it to your target audience in a user-friendly way. 

When it comes to choosing the perfect CMS (Content Management System), you might want to zero in on the most popular one. Yep, you guessed it right, none other than WordPress!

Now, you can have the best web developers and designers build your website on WordPress, but guess what? It will still be vulnerable to hackers’ cyberattacks. 

Yes, we kid you not! Wordfence reports up to 90000 attacks on WordPress-powered websites every minute.

So, what do you do?

With over 12+ years of experience in delivering 5K+ WordPress projects to over 3K+ global clients,  we at Mavlers have become quite familiar with the nitty-gritty of what goes into building a solid WordPress website, its vulnerabilities, and how to prevent or fix them. 

We understand your need to familiarize yourself with the reasons behind WordPress getting hacked, vulnerabilities to watch out for, and how we at Mavlers can help your WordPress website stay in top-notch condition. 

In the blog that follows, you will find answers to:

• Common reasons WordPress gets hacked
• How can I know if someone has hacked into my WordPress website?
• How do I respond to a hack on my WordPress website?
• Mavlers’ approach to WordPress security

As you make your way through the blog, you will find yourself better equipped to know when someone has hacked your WordPress website, the common reasons behind it, how you can respond in such a situation, and how we at Mavlers can help you run a tight ship when it comes to ensuring and enhancing your WordPress security. 

Let’s get started!

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Common reasons WordPress gets hacked

According to Sucuri’s 2022 Website Threat Research Report, “greater than 95.6% of infections detected were on websites based on WordPress.”

The primary reasons behind such staggering numbers are:

• It is very widely used 
• It is an open-source platform with a huge community of developers 

In order to better understand the factors behind WordPress getting hacked, let’s look into some of the vulnerabilities of WordPress websites.

1.  Plugin Vulnerabilities

According to a study conducted by Colorlib, 92.81% of WordPress security issues are because of plugin vulnerabilities. 

Plugins are software that can be added to a WordPress website to enhance its features, add new capabilities, and customize various aspects of the site.

However, using poorly coded or outdated plugins can introduce specific risks such as:

• Exploitable code and outdated security patches that result in security vulnerabilities
• Incompatibility issues resulting from theme and plugin conflicts
• WordPress regularly releases core updates, and if the plugins are poorly coded or outdated, they will not be compatible with the latest versions, causing conflicts or functionality issues
• Performance degradation resulting from inefficiently coded plugins consuming excessive system resources, causing slowdowns and potential crashes

2. Theme Vulnerability

Theme vulnerabilities account for 6.61% of WordPress security concerns. Themes are crucial in defining a WordPress site’s visual appearance and layout. When themes contain security vulnerabilities, they create opportunities for malicious actors to exploit and compromise the website. 

Here’s how vulnerable themes can compromise WordPress security:

• Vulnerabilities in themes can allow hackers to bypass authentication mechanisms or gain unauthorized access to the website’s administrative areas
• Flaws in theme security can result in malicious site injections such as Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) or SQL injections
• Security breaches resulting from vulnerable themes may also lead to legal and regulatory consequences

3. Outdated WordPress Core

An outdated WordPress core is responsible for 0.58% of WordPress security concerns. On average, major versions of WordPress get released after every 152 days.

An outdated WordPress core poses a significant security risk and increases the likelihood of a WordPress website getting hacked. Also, users are not likely to get support easily if their website runs on an outdated core version. 

Using an outdated WordPress core can lead to security vulnerabilities in the following ways:

• Malicious exploits
• Backdoor exploitation
• Data breaches
• Weak passwords

Interestingly, 8% of websites risk getting hacked because of a weak password. Weak passwords can significantly contribute to WordPress website vulnerabilities by making it easier for unauthorized individuals or automated bots to gain unauthorized access. Here are several ways in which weak passwords pose a risk to the security of a WordPress site:

• Brute force attacks: True to its name, hackers use multiple permutations of login information using automated software in the quest to hit the jackpot with the right one! So if your site’s password is something extremely easy to guess or crack, such as “123456” or your name, hacking into your site will be a piece of cake for those with malicious intent. 
• Credential stuffing: When was the last time you used the same password for multiple websites? Not too long ago? Well, then you might need to fix that! Credential stuffing is an instance of an automated attack where stolen account credentials (usernames and email addresses) are used to gain illegal/unauthorized access to user accounts. 
• Unauthorized access to user accounts results in user impersonation and privilege escalation. That is why it is recommended that users use multi-factor authentication, which requires them to provide a second form of verification, such as a code from a mobile app.

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How can I know if someone has hacked into my WordPress website?

Now that you are familiar with the vulnerabilities and the reasons behind WordPress hacks, you might wonder how to know if someone has hacked your WordPress account. Well, here’s how:

1. When you load your URL, a security alert appears on your website
2. Your security plugin has detected a problem
3. Your host sends you an email citing an issue
4. There is a complete redirect on your website that you haven’t made
5. You see strange code on the pages of your website
6. Your website is entirely unavailable, albeit there may also be other reasons for this
7. Your website’s ads lead users to dubious websites
8. Your website is behaving strangely in other ways or loads very slowly all of a sudden

How do I respond to a hack on my WordPress website?

Once you have identified an issue concerning your website’s security, you would like to know the mitigation steps to take. Here’s an insight into what you can do to prevent further damage:

1. Find out what transpired (run server site or PHP files vulnerability scans, JS file or JSON file, check the server side for vulnerabilities if there are no errors in the core)
2. Run a malware scan to check for errors and vulnerabilities
3. Bring a backup back in
4. Change all passwords and eliminate suspicious users
5. Hire a website security specialist
6. Update the version of WordPress, your plugins, and your themes
7. Resubmit your website to Google to make it crawlable and indexable again

Mavlers’ approach to WordPress security

At Mavlers, we value the security and hygiene of your WordPress website. Therefore, we offer the latest components in our web maintenance packages, which you may consider opting for. 

Here’s an overview of how we at Mavlers ensure the security of your WordPress website:

• WordPress/PHP/theme/WooCommerce updates
• Plugin update and maintenance
• Monthly/quarterly database backups
• Manual virus & malware scanning
• Priority support on website downtime & malware attacks
• Broken Links Scan
• Install the premium themes security plugin and setup security notifications to your email ID
• Provide a report of server log time (Uptime) and our security check report of the website
• Monthly review of payment gateway & checkout security
• Quarterly site SEO health check report

You can read in detail about these services in our blog titled “A Complete Guide To Web Maintenance Packages At Mavlers”.

You may also want to check out the three website maintenance packages at Mavlers. While you can always peruse what’s on offer in each package, you can also connect with us to better understand what might suit you best. In fact, we can also create a customized package that meets your requirements!

The road ahead 

You are now familiar with the common reasons behind WordPress vulnerabilities, how you can identify breaches, mitigating measures, and how we at Mavlers can help your website stay safe and secure with our website maintenance packages. 

If you are confused about whether to opt for a one-page or multi-page website for your next business venture, you might want to consider reading “One Page V/S Multi-Page Website: Which One Should I Choose For My Business?”