I Got Hacked. Here's What I Wish I'd Known About WordPress Security

You know that sinking feeling when you open your website and instead of your carefully crafted homepage, there's a page full of random pharmaceutical ads ? Yeah, that was my Tuesday morning. I'd like to say I handled it gracefully, but honestly, I just sat there staring at my screen thinking "this can't be real" while my coffee got cold. Spoiler alert: it was very real, and it was about to teach me more about WordPress security than I ever wanted to know. Here's the thing though – I wasn't running some sketchy website. I had WooCommerce, a few thousand products, and what I thought was "decent" security. Turns out, "decent" in WordPress security is like saying you're "sort of" pregnant. You either take it seriously, or you're in for a surprise. Let me walk you through what happened, what I learned the hard way, and how you can avoid becoming another cautionary tale in someone else's blog post. What Actually Happened (The Ugly Truth) It started innocuously enough. A customer emailed saying they couldn't check out. "Probably just a glitch," I thought, while clicking over to my site. That's when I saw it – my beautiful product pages replaced with... let's just say content I definitely didn't create. My first reaction? Panic. My second? More panic, but now with frantic Googling. After calling my hosting provider (and being put on hold for what felt like a geological era), I learned that someone had exploited an outdated plugin to get into my site. Not just any plugin – one I'd installed eight months ago and promptly forgot about. It was sitting there, un-updated, like an unlocked back door with a neon "HACKERS WELCOME" sign. The damage report was worse than I expected: Malicious code injected into my theme files Admin user accounts I didn't create (with names like "admin123" and "wordpress" – real creative, hackers) My database bloated with spam content Google had already flagged my site as "potentially harmful" That last one hurt the most. Do you know how long it takes to get removed from Google's naughty list? Let me save you the suspense: way too long. The Real Cost (It's Not Just Money) Everyone talks about the financial cost of getting hacked. Sure, I spent money getting my site cleaned, hardened, and monitored. But nobody prepared me for the other stuff: Lost Sleep: I'm talking 2 AM, lying in bed, wondering if there are still backdoors in my site. Wondering if those hackers are laughing at me somewhere. (They probably weren't, but anxiety isn't logical.) Lost Trust: Customers who saw the hacked version? Some came back. Others didn't. Can't blame them – if I saw a site serving malware, I'd bounce too. Lost Time: Between the cleanup, the security audit, the password resets (ALL the password resets), and the preventive measures, I lost about three weeks of productive work. That's three weeks I could've spent actually building my business. Lost Rankings: Remember that Google blacklist I mentioned? Yeah, my organic traffic dropped 70% overnight and took four months to recover. Four. Months. What I Wish I'd Known Before (The Good Stuff) Alright, enough doom and gloom. Let's talk about what actually matters – how to not be me (the before version, anyway). 1. Updates Aren't Optional (Seriously, Stop Putting Them Off) I used to be that person who saw the "47 updates available" notification and thought "I'll do it this weekend." Weekends turned into months. Those updates? They're not just feature improvements or "under the hood enhancements." They're literally patches for security holes. Here's what I do now: I update everything every Monday morning. Plugins, themes, WordPress core – everything. Yes, even the ones that say "optional." Nothing is optional when it comes to security. Pro tip: Before updating, take a full backup. I use UpdraftPlus (there are others), and it's saved me twice when updates broke things. Better a temporarily broken site you can restore than a permanently hacked one. 2. Not All Plugins Are Created Equal Before my incident, I had 32 plugins installed. After? I'm down to 12. Turns out, I didn't need a plugin for everything. Here's my new plugin philosophy: Is it actively maintained? If the last update was over 6 months ago, it's a no. How many active installs does it have? If it's under 1,000, I get suspicious. What are the reviews saying? I actually read them now, especially the negative ones. Do I really need it? Can I accomplish the same thing with a code snippet or a different approach? That plugin that got me hacked? It had 87 active installs and hadn't been updated in 18 months. But it did exactly what I needed (or so I thought), so I installed it anyway. Lesson learned. 3. Your Passwords Are Probably Terrible Be honest – are you using something like "YourBusinessName2024!" as your admin password? I was. Well, not exactly that, but close enough that a brute force attack would've cracked it in about 72 hours. Now I use a password manager (1Password, but Bitworm and LastPass work too), and every password is randomly generated. My WordPress admin password is 32 characters of complete gibberish. Do I remember it? Nope. Do I need to? Also nope. And here's something I didn't know: if you're using "admin" as your username, change it. Like, right now. Stop reading and change it. It's the first thing hackers try, and it gives them half the information they need to break in. 4. Two-Factor Authentication Is Your Best Friend I resisted 2FA for so long. "It's such a hassle," I told myself. "I'll definitely remember to do it later." You know what's a hassle? Getting hacked. Now I have 2FA on everything. WordPress admin, email, hosting account, domain registrar – everything. It takes an extra 5 seconds to log in, but it means someone would need both my password AND my phone to get in. I use the Wordfence plugin for WordPress 2FA, but there are others. Pick one. Set it up. Your future self will thank you. 5. Cheap Hosting Is Expensive I was paying $3.99 a month for hosting. "What a deal!" I thought. Turns out, you get what you pay for. My budget host had: Servers that got hacked themselves (yikes) No automatic backups Support that took 48+ hours to respond Outdated PHP versions with known vulnerabilities After the hack, I moved to a managed WordPress host. Yes, it costs more (about $30/month), but they: Automatically update WordPress core Run daily malware scans Keep automatic backups Have actual security experts on staff Respond to support tickets in minutes, not days The peace of mind alone is worth it. Plus, my site loads faster now, which is a nice bonus. 6. Backups Aren't Backups Until You've Tested Them I thought I had backups. My host said they did "regular backups." Guess what? When I needed them, they were corrupted. Now I have: Daily automated backups (UpdraftPlus to Google Drive) Weekly manual backups that I download Monthly full site archives I store offline And here's the kicker – I actually test my backups quarterly by restoring them to a staging site. It's the only way to know they actually work. The Security Setup That Actually Works After everything, here's what my security stack looks like now: The Plugin Lineup: Wordfence Security (free version is solid, premium is better) UpdraftPlus for backups iThemes Security (adds an extra layer) WP Activity Log (so I know who's doing what on my site) The Configuration: 2FA on all admin accounts Login attempt limiting (3 strikes, you're out) File integrity monitoring Regular malware scans XML-RPC disabled (it's a common attack vector) File editing disabled in the dashboard The Habits: Weekly security scans Monthly security audits Quarterly backup tests Continuous monitoring of failed login attempts The Preventive Maintenance Schedule I Actually Follow Monday mornings are now "security Mondays." Here's what I do: Every Monday (15 minutes): Check for updates (all plugins, themes, core) Review security scan results Check failed login attempts Verify backup completed successfully First Monday of the Month (30 minutes): Full security audit using Wordfence Review all user accounts (delete inactive ones) Check for unused plugins (delete them) Update all passwords Quarterly (1-2 hours): Test backup restoration Review all security settings Audit all installed plugins (is each one still necessary?) Check Google Search Console for security issues Is it time-consuming? A bit. Is it worth it? Absolutely. It's way less time than dealing with another hack. The Signs I Wish I'd Noticed Looking back, there were warning signs I ignored: Slow site performance – Malicious code was running in the background Weird admin accounts – I saw an unfamiliar user once and thought "hmm, strange" but didn't investigate Increased server resources – My hosting sent a warning about unusual resource usage. I ignored it. Search results showing weird pages – Google was indexing spam pages on my site. I should've noticed. Now I know better. If something seems off, it probably is. What to Do If It Happens to You If you're reading this because you just got hacked (sorry, friend), here's your action plan: Immediate Steps (First Hour): Don't panic (easier said than done, I know) Change all passwords from a different device Enable maintenance mode to prevent customers from seeing the damage Contact your hosting provider Document everything with screenshots Recovery Steps (First 24 Hours): Hire a professional if you're not confident (worth every penny) Scan for malware Remove malicious code Close security holes Restore from a clean backup if available Prevention Steps (After Cleanup): Implement all the security measures I mentioned above Request removal from blocklists Notify affected users if necessary Monitor closely for re-infection Set up Google Search Console to watch for security issues The Silver Lining I won't lie – getting hacked sucked. But it taught me things I needed to know. My site is now more secure than it's ever been. My processes are better. My awareness is sharper. Plus, now I can bore people at parties with stories about SQL injection attacks and brute force attempts. That's worth something, right? The Bottom Line WordPress security isn't sexy. It's not fun. Nobody wants to spend their weekend configuring firewall rules or testing backup restorations. But you know what's even less fun? Watching someone deface your website. Explaining to customers why their data might be compromised. Rebuilding from scratch because your backups failed. The good news? You don't need to be a security expert. You just need to: Update everything regularly Use strong, unique passwords Enable 2FA Keep regular backups Use reputable security plugins Pay attention to warning signs That's it. It's not complicated, it's not expensive, and it takes maybe an hour a month once you're set up. Is it worth it? Ask me after you've been hacked. Or better yet, don't get hacked in the first place. Your Turn Have you dealt with a WordPress hack? Got security tips I missed? Drop a comment below. I'm always learning, and this stuff is way too important to not share. And if you're reading this thinking "I should probably update my plugins," then this whole post was worth it. Go do that. Right now. I'll wait. Actually, I won't wait because this is a blog post and I can't see what you're doing. But seriously, go update your plugins. Stay safe out there.