Did you know your WordPress website can be hacked without your knowing it? You usually won’t find out your site is hacked until things get really bad, such as when:
- Your web host shuts down your site because it is distributing malware (though often they won’t notice)
- You get an email from someone across the globe asking you to please desist in using their domain in an email spam campaign
- Visitors to your site are warned that it is a “phishing site” and is stealing information from people
- Google warns people to not open your website because it is infected with malware
Without knowing it for months or even years, your website could be promoting porn, pharmaceuticals, or pay day loans; infecting your friends’ computers with viruses, trojans, or other malware; or participating in a botnet that is infiltrating sites across the world. Security scanners and plugins like Sucuri and Wordfence do not pick up on many of these hacks. So, even if the site shows as “clean” that doesn’t meant it is.
Why should you care? Because getting off the phish tank list is hard. Your search engine rankings could tank. You could lose clients who are angry that your site directed them to a site that infected their computers. And, well, caring is the ethical thing to do as a business owner.
Attend this talk to learn how to spot a hack in your WordPress files and dashboard, clean up a hacked site, and prevent hacks. Cleaning up a hacked site can take a lot of time and expense. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This fast and furious presentation will leave you wishing you’d never heard it but so glad you did.