Well I have fallen victim to the 20th century hackers or one might say I left my doors wide open for them to enter and help themselves to anything they like. I have had all my 5 or so WordPress Blogs hacked into to the point where I couldn’t log back in to check or change anything. Talk about getting PISSED off! Like many bloggers out there, I am a novice when it comes to the coding,html,CSS,RSS & technical know how when it comes to WordPress or any website programs for that matter. There are many amateurs who use WordPress as an easy not to technical way to publish content but don’t have the slightest clue when it comes to website security or all that other ‘techie’ stuff. I am honest enough to admit I am one of these people.

I received an email from Google (I thought I was important at this stage) telling my my site was infected with Malware and that the site is now banned to protect visitors computers from harm. In my mind I couldn’t see how this could have happened. Anyway when I visited the site I knew this to be true. Over the next few days I recieved a few more of these emails regarding my other sites. I now had a HEADACHE on my hands. I let it go untouched for way too long before taking any action on getting things sorted out and back to normal. I went online and read some websites about how to log into your WordPress blog ones it’s been hacked and the like and I just wasted time. Again I have NO idea about this stuff and most bloggers out there don’t either.

When I finally decided to fix the problem, I engaged Eleven Media to find the malicious code/virus and remove it so Google would allow visitors to visit my sites. So after about a week or so and $500 later all my sites are now back online and working perfectly. Don’t worry, They wont infect you now!!

I want to say thanks to Aaron from Eleven Media for fixing everything and providing me with some instructions to prevent this from happening again. I will now share these instructions with you below.

8 Steps To Take Now To Prevent Your WordPress Blog From Being Hacked Into.

1. Change your FTP password to a Stronger one. Those of you using an FTP program to upload files to your server make sure the password is strong. Mine was apparently so weak It was like I gave a personal invite to the hackers. If you don’t even know what FTP is then you’ll be fine!

2. Change your Hosting account passwords to a stronger one. (In my case GoDaddy). I cant even remember my customer numbers or passwords and being such a big company I doubt the hackers got to me this way.

3. Change your Google accounts to a stronger one. This includes your analytics accounts, adwords, gmail etc..

4. Back up your sites content & database. I personally am not sure on how to do this. I thought there was a plugin for this. If anyway can answer this question please do so in the comments below.

5. Upgrade WordPress to the latest version. Version 3.0 due around May so upgrade then.

6. Remove your unused Plugins. No point keeping them there if your not using them.

7. Update your used Plugins to the latest versions. It’ll usually tell you in the ‘Plugins’ section that a new version is available. Update it. Make sure its reputable. Don’t download crappy plugins with poor feedback.

8. Ensure that YOU are the only user/admin.

I wish I had this list when I first started blogging. Perhaps I would have saved myself a headache. I have learnt my lesson well and have already implemented the above on all my sites. Again I would like to thank Aaron Rutley for his help. If you guys have any additional support tips that I haven’t mentioned, feel free to leave them in the comments below and we’ll create a more valuable guide.

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