How To Completely Clean Your Hacked WordPress Installation
Posted on June 24th, 2008 at 10:11 am by Michael VanDeMar under blogthropology, coding, how-to, On The Ball-ness, SEO, web design
Hosting with HostPapa or Netregistry and Hacked? Switch Hosts Now. (hacked by hacker)
Getting hacked sucks, plain and simple. It can affect your rankings, cause your readership to be exposed to virus and trojan attacks, make you an unwilling promoter to subject material you may not actually endorse, and in many cases cause the loss of valuable content. However, once it happens it is usually best to not procrastinate on the clean up process, since a speedy restore will most times minimize the damage that was caused.
While almost all sources will recommend that you upgrade your WordPress to the latest version, what the majority neglect to tell you is that in most cases simply doing so will not prevent the attackers from getting back in, even if there are no known exploits with the latest version. The hackers may have left a back door file hidden in a directory where it wouldn’t get overwritten with an upgrade, or inserted code into your theme, or simply created an account that they then granted admin privileges to. Any one of those would allow them back in, even after you patched what was wrong the first time. Therefore I am providing this step by step process on how to completely clean out and restore a WordPress installation that has been hacked.
1. Backup the site and the database.
Even a hacked copy of your blog still probably contains valuable information and files. You don’t want to lose this data if something goes wrong with the cleanup process. Worst case scenario you can just restore things back to their hacked state and start over.
2. Make a copy of any uploaded files, such as images, that are referenced.
Images are generally exempt from posing a security risk, and ones that you uploaded yourself (as opposed to ones included with a theme, for instance) will be harder to track down and replace after things are fixed again. Therefore it is usually a good idea to grab a copy of all the images in your upload folder so as to avoid broken images in posts later. If you have any non-image files that could potentially have been compromised, such as zip files, plugins, or php scripts that you were offering people, then it is a good idea to grab fresh copies of those from the original source.
3. Download a fresh version of WP, all of the plugins you need, and a clean template.
Using the WordPress automatic upgrade plugin does make it easier to upgrade every time a new version comes out. However, it only replaces WordPress specific files, and does not delete obsolete ones. It also leaves your current themes and plugins in place, as is. This means that if used to upgrade a blog that has already been compromised, it can very well leave the attackers a way back in. It is best to start over from scratch as far as the files portion of your installation goes. Note that if you use the EasyWP WordPress Installer script that I wrote it saves you from having to download, unzip, and then upload all of the core WordPress files, although you will still need to grab fresh copies of the themes and plugins that you want to use.
4. Delete all of the files and folders in the WP directory, either through FTP (slower) or through cPanel’s File Manager (faster).
Now that you have fresh copies of all the files you need, and copied all of your uploaded images, completely delete the entire directory structure your blog is in. This is the only surefire way to completely remove all possibly infected files. You can do this through FTP, but due to the way that FTP handles folder deletion (ie. it walks the directory structure, stores each and every file name that needs to be deleted, and then sends a delete command for each one), this can be slow and in some instances cause you to get disconnected due to flooding the server with FTP commands. If available it is much faster to do this through either cPanel’s File Manager, or via command line if you happen to have shell access.
5. Re-upload the new fresh copies you just grabbed.
This step should be self explanatory, but I would like to mention that if your FTP client supports it (I use FileZilla, which does) and your host allows it, then increasing the number of simultaneous connections you use to upload can greatly reduce your overall transfer time, especially on servers or ISP’s where latency is more of an issue than bandwidth. In FileZilla this setting is found by going to “Edit -> Settings -> File transfer settings”:
Also, if not using the EasyWP WordPress Installer script, don’t forget to edit and rename your wp-config.php file (when freshly unzipped this is named wp-config-sample.php).
6. Run the database upgrade (point your browser at /wp-admin/upgrade.php).
This will make any necessary changes to your database structure to support the newest version of WordPress.
7. Immediately change your admin password.
If you have more than one admin (meaning any user with editing capabilities), and cannot get the others to change their passwords right then, I would change their user levels until they can change their passwords as well. If there is anyone in your user list that has editing capabilities, and you do not recognize them, it’s probably best to just delete them altogether. If changing passwords is something you hate doing, then maybe my new memorable password generator can make that a little less stressful for you. 
8. Go through the posts and repair any damage in the posts themselves.
Delete any links or iframes that were inserted, and restore any lost content. Google and Yahoo’s caches are often a good source of what used to be there if anything got overwritten. The following query run against the database can help you isolate which posts you want to look at:
SELECT * FROM wp_posts WHERE post_content LIKE '%<iframe%' UNION SELECT * FROM wp_posts WHERE post_content LIKE '%<noscript%' UNION SELECT * FROM wp_posts WHERE post_content LIKE '%display:%'
If you did not change the default prefix for WordPress tables, than you can copy and paste that directly into a query window and run it, and it should pull up any posts that have been modified to hide content using any of the methods I have come across so far (iframes, noscript tags, and display:none style attributes). To get to a query window in cPanel, you would click on the MySQL® Databases icon, scroll to the bottom of the page, and then click on phpMyAdmin. Once the new window or tab opens, you would click on the database in the left hand side that your blog was in, and then in the right side at the top click on the SQL tab. Then just paste the query into the large text area and hit the Go button.
Note, however, that there may be other types of injected content that I haven’t seen yet, and that a manual inspection looking for the types of patterns that first alerted you to the fact that your blog was hacked is always a good idea.
UPDATE: 9. If you are having issues cleaning the installation yourself (still valid in 2013)
When I wrote this post back in 2008 I intended it to be a do it yourself guide for the non-techie. However, I do realize that some people would still rather a professional programmer perform many of the steps I outlined here. If anyone has had their WordPress installation hacked, and either is uncomfortable attempting to clean it on their own, or has tried to do so with no success, I am available on a case by case basis. Most cleanings can be performed in about one hour, two at the most. The time can vary depending on the size of the blog, the amount of customization to the original theme, and the number of plugins installed. Feel free to contact me here if you feel like you could benefit from my help. Please include the site and any details that you think might be relevant (pro theme, anything you may have tried on your own, etc.) in the contact form.
UPDATE #2: 10. A note on hosting.
This past year (2010) has seen multiple waves of attacks on people’s websites that happened not due to insecurities within the WordPress platform itself, as has historically been the issue, but rather due to vulnerabilities with the actual hosts. Some of the bigger names that were hit include GoDaddy, Rackspace Cloud, MediaTemple, and Network Solutions, for instance. It is very important that you use a host that is not only well versed in security, but one that is stable and has knowledgeable tech support as well.
My personal recommendation for shared hosting is Hostgator. It is where this blog and many other sites of mine are currently hosted. Yes, that is an aff. link, but I would recommend them even if it wasn’t. For a dedicated solution that is both affordable and robust I use The Planet, which is where I host Bad Neighborhood. Both companies are ones that I have been using for years without issues, and that I do recommend to my own clients when they find themselves dissatisfied with their current hosts. If you were hacked, and your WordPress was up to date when it happened, then a change of hosts is something you should consider looking into.
You should follow me on Twitter!
June 25th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Very nice post bro, I hope you could have posted it lill before to help me out of this situation… lol
Anyhow, I am sure it will be very helpful to some else who is stucked in such situation. Thanks for the useful post
June 25th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Image files can be used to carry both hidden information and executable code (malware). While I agree the risk is not great, you should be careful about everything you port forward from a hacked installation to a new installation, including images. If you have pre-hack copies, certainly use those instead. Also, the existence of many images you did not put up yourself may be evidence of the intent of the hacker. Your site may have been intended to be used as a distribution point or hub… and you should ask your host to help make sure the new setup is protected against that sort of abuse.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Actually, no, you cannot infect someone with a virus or other malware through an image. At worst a hacked blog might have their images defaced or destroyed, but that doesn’t actually pose a danger to the readers.
June 26th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Excellent post. Definitely worth my Digg.
There is one thing I would add to the list – use a vulnerability scanner on a regular basis.
Spend $50 a month and have someone scan your site every day so you know when is the next time you are vulnerable. I just thought about how much this hack had cost me including downtime when I make no sales, loosing customers and reputation, and the cost of recovery, assuming I have an updated backup…
It is definately helpful to know how to recover but it is more important to make sure you are not falling again.
June 26th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Great post! Unfortunately most folks don’t heed the advice to prepare and backup until something happens to them. Just like backing up a hard drive. But once it happens, they realize how important it is and never forget. It’s good to have the peace of mind that you have a plan in place to deal with something like this when it happens. I recommend printing up the post and keeping it as a Standard Operating Procedure for dealing with the possibility of being hacked.
Sounds like Atlaf just went through the same thing..I’m sure he’ll be prepared if it happens again thanks to your informative post. Keep up the good work! Enjoyable and informative blog on what can sometimes be a boring subject.
June 26th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
You might be getting hundreds of “thank you”s by the end of the year with this post. Thanks for laying out everything step by step. I have dozens of people forward this post to
June 26th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
@Michael VanDeMar there have been malware vectors abusing images files since 2002, and stegonographic manipulations since before that.
You misread me – I never said you would get a virus from the image. I said the image can carry malware – payload code, which can be executed if you have any of several existing Windows viruses on your system. Search perrun for an example.
In this context it was said that you can safely keep your images after you’ve been hacked. My caution was that they may have been modified, so if you have your originals, you are better off resoring them because images are not 100% “safe”. It is not best-practice to retain anything after a hack if you have other options.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:46 am
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July 3rd, 2008 at 6:22 am
Just say “wush wush go away hacker!” and there they fly away
No sorry, it is a pain in the ass, you should always have the last version and a managed server that is up to date, for my situation that would be sufficient. good luck! Aislin
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:46 am
Actually, Hypotheek, one of the reasons they keep coming out with new versions is because the older ones have security holes in them. Just having the latest version is never a guarantee that it is safe. The most you can say is that having an older version is pretty much a guarantee that you are not safe.
July 8th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Great info, who knows it might be coming handy one day (hopefully not)
Another way to prevent security loophole in WP or any other PHP based CMS is to tighten the security at the server level.
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Thats great info. I’ll try to run those SQL in my wp sites now and check them.
Thanks for the tips
November 28th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Good info. Does anyone have some great plugin or tool to backup your WP a little faster?
Thanks, Kopen
January 15th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
I have had to deal with four or five wp hacks in the past year, so this post helps alot. Sometimes I dont know where to start.
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June 10th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Great post! i had a lot of hackproblems the past couple of years so this would help me a lot.
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August 25th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
This is really good to mentione! Most of the times this advice is for many too late. Thank you for sharing. Greetz, Jasper
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September 3rd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Wow, great reference article, worked great right away.
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September 5th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
I’m going to do all this, thanks.
But while preparing all this, I at least cleaned my unauthorized admins out of my db with a few queries: http://spacefem.livejournal.com/555475.html
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September 8th, 2009 at 6:45 am
Thanks for this great article. I’ve had to deal with three wordpress-hacks this year, so this post helps me a lot!
September 9th, 2009 at 8:15 am
I have been hacked and just found out. I know it was my fault as I did not update because of problems my daughter had when she updated, and I felt like things were going fine for me so did not do it.
I am sorry now, but also confused as to what to do. I am not as young as many of you, and so sometimes things scare me a bit!
I exported my XML that wordpress makes for you as well as all my images, but now do not know what I should do. I also forget how to install wordpress from the beginning which is what I think I need to do now, wipe out all the old and then put in a new, right?
Then, is it not safe to just import my old posts? I hate to lose everything, but do I need to start over and let the two or 3 years of posts get dumped?
UGH, I am upset.
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September 11th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Hey
My site just went down in a way that has never happened before. I was not working on it either plus I had done some major marketing. It was a strange coincidence that I had emailed someone who deals with security, just before it happened and obviously competitors may have done it.
The site is http://www.csv2post.com now I was not too bothered to be honest its very new, not a lot of traffic but I’m dead certain it was a hack, even hosting thinks it was.
Anyone good at hacking want to offer a fee to fix the issue or are these hacker plugins around working enough and giving enough security to not bother paying?
Ryan
September 14th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Thank you Michael for all these useful details. Unfortunately, most of people become wise just after a hacker attack… The main rule remain a constantly backup of your databases.
By upgrading your blog to the last version – and for the plugins also – it`s a way to keep away the common hackers attacks; but don`t forget, never you can`t be sure, this is the nature of the web and only with an early backup you keep in sure the most of your important dates.
September 15th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I cant thank you enough for helping me rescue several of my wordpress sites that were hacked.
Once again thanks
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September 17th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
I have a photography blog at http://shoots.wedding-photography-melbourne.com.au – I have just recovered from a hack that went deep into the database. I had to export my posts as an xml file from the hacked WordPress site and import that file into a new, freshly created database… Arrgh. New passwords, redownload of the plugins and template files – absolutely everything new and clean. The call across the board is to stay current with your WordPress installation and you’ll have less chance of problems.
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October 9th, 2009 at 7:10 am
Thanks very much for your help.
October 11th, 2009 at 6:30 am
I found a Virus that links to try-your-destiny.cn that was hiding in the file wp-content\uploads\js.cache\tinymce_f299bb0eff6f5bf98754a5f09bd63ddf.gz !
(eval(…) was hidden in that zip).
Deleting all the WordPress Content didn’t helped, as I kept the wp-config and my upload folder!
So it is important to make step 2. as described above…
Best regards
Kfx
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October 25th, 2009 at 11:42 am
bad luck for me
my site hacked
i can’t open and redirect into another
and i can’t log in into my cpanel too
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November 18th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Mine was not hacked, but rather, the whole wp blog seems to have a lot of errors in it. Probably plugin incompatibility issues. Some plugins I was using before doesn’t seem to work anymore. And some features of the dashboard doesn’t work either, like it just shows a white, blank space in there, especially if I am installing themes, plugins.
So I think I’d just clean up my whole root folder, reinstall wordpress and upload my backup database. what do you think? will that solve the issues surrounding plugins, themes etc?
November 19th, 2009 at 3:05 am
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November 19th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
kristine, there is no way of knowing if that would fix it without knowing the errors or simply trying. It can’t hurt.
The thing is, if you are having incompatibility issues with the plugins, and you just reinstall the same ones, then you will most likely have the same issues. If you’re not hacked, then what you might want to do is simply deactivate all of the plugins first, and then slowly turn them back on, one by one, checking for the errors you are getting each time. That will help you isolate what is causing the problem (assuming that it is in fact related to your plugins). You should also go to WordPress and check each plugin’s compatibility (ie. which versions they are supposed to work with).
November 25th, 2009 at 3:45 am
Good info bro to share. Recently, I have just cleaned up my blog folder after backed up my database. All plugin were lost then need to install one by one. It’s so mess. Any plugins management that you can propose? TQ.
December 7th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Thank you so much for this post. My sites got hacked and I did not know what to do. I went through all your steps and was able to almost restore my site. The last think I needed to do was update my .htaccess file and when I did that I got back all my posts….WAHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I have worked on one site for 3 years and had close to 600 posts on that site…I thought it was all gone. I literally worked on restoring this site for 12 hours today…and thanks to you and the steps above, I finally did it.
Thank you again
Sam
December 23rd, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Hello,
I need someone to help me explain this in more details and step by step. I’m completely newbie in this.
Thanks for your time
January 3rd, 2010 at 1:26 am
I will pay someone $250 to perform this as a service for me… Cleaning or getting rid of all of the bad coding and scripts on my blogs.
It is unfortunate that hackers and virus creators do things like this to intentionally and maliciously destroy other peoples hard worked for content. These individuals are like the scum of the earth. Who sits around all day creating malicious codes and scripts just to mess with people?? It’s people like this that end up seriously HAUNTED at the end of their lives by all of the wrong doing that they have done throughout their life. People that intentionally harm or wrong do others are like satans little lovely beings. Heartless. Soulless. Friendless. Must be a wonderfull world they live in…
There is a thing called benevolence, which holds the meaning of: possessing that in which an individual truly cares about the health and well being of other people. Not to sound “tree huggerish”. But seriously, come on, get a life and go do something significant rather than sitting in your cave all day and dying a slow, timely death. There is so much more to life than thinking that you are doing something cool by “being a hacker and ILLEGALLY getting into or intentionally destroying other peoples stuff”. Back in the old days you would have had the privilege of getting a bag put over your head with a noose around your neck and getting the stool kicked out from under you. It’s called “eye for eye”.
My apologies to everyone that reads this that are searching out how to fix your blog. It is obviously meant for the little, no good, no life having, soulless human maggot out there that creates viruses, malicious scripts and hacks other peoples stuff. YOU SUCK BIG MOOSE C#&@!!
Nick
January 24th, 2010 at 6:48 am
1, Only use plugin from wordpress.org unless you feel confident about the security of third-party plugins.
2, Use Secure WordPress plugin.
3, Remove the wp version from php files of theme. If possible, directly use static javascript file location instead of invoking php function since wp will automatically add the version number at the tail.
4, Have a nice neighbor on your hosting.
Just my 2 cents hehe
January 31st, 2010 at 3:56 am
thank yu so much for the article, few days ago all of my sites got hacked. I was lucky it was not xss. Bad part is got a trojan from a hacked advertiser on a very reputable network, when it installed it compromised smart ftp. All index,home and .jv got a malicious script inserted after page code. Took me days to clean up, going one by one. I wish I came across your post earlier
February 9th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
urrrgh!!!! Looks like we got our blog hit too X(
This was NOT on the schedule for today, but thanks for the layout of how to handle this hacked WP issue. It should go much smoother with this
February 14th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Fantastic post. The SQL stuff saved me!
February 26th, 2010 at 10:34 am
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March 13th, 2010 at 11:27 am
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March 25th, 2010 at 7:58 am
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March 28th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Thank you for this great post. I am going to make some backups today of my wordpress based websites. A friend’s website has been hacked recently. It was very hard for me to get his site online again. Thanks again for your post, it really helped me.
April 1st, 2010 at 8:04 pm
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April 10th, 2010 at 12:17 am
I am having issues with the header php being modified. A script and a ton of BS links to various sites. I’m fairly familiar with all the steps you describe but I’m really uncomfortable with doing it. I got a lot of data stored and I’m sharing the server with several other people. Any way you can help a fellow blogger out?
April 12th, 2010 at 6:46 am
[...] – http://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_My_site_was_hacked; – http://smackdown.blogsblogsblo.....ess-instal…; – [...]
April 16th, 2010 at 2:57 am
[...] The best and complete step-by-step guide on how to clean a hacked blog [...]
April 19th, 2010 at 2:24 am
[...] How to clean your hacked install and Removing malware from a WordPress blog which explain in details some steps you might need to [...]
May 4th, 2010 at 8:22 am
Hey thank you so much, This post should be on the wordpress official site.thank you again
May 4th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
[...] FAQ: My site was hacked How to completely clean your hacked WordPress installation [...]
May 6th, 2010 at 12:26 am
[...] FAQ: My site was hacked How to completely clean your hacked WordPress installation [...]
May 12th, 2010 at 7:28 am
Thanks a lot for this post! Now my wordpress site is online!
May 13th, 2010 at 10:05 am
[...] and infections, mostly for those who might not have the time or technical expertise to follow my hacked WordPress cleaning guide. Therefore when something happens that increases the number of people getting hacked, such as when [...]
May 13th, 2010 at 10:41 am
I found a better, faster and easier way to fix your holasionweb issue, just read it here at tintation.com
May 13th, 2010 at 11:14 am
@Vladimir – while scripts like that can speed the process up and do make some things easier, they are very specialized, therefore only catching certain hacks and no variations, and in no way replace prevention.
May 13th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
[...] help fixing it, I would highly recommend talking to Michael VanDeMar. He’s written a great guide to cleaning up WordPress hacks and offers a cleaning service if you’d rather not do the work yourself. Contact him here [...]
May 15th, 2010 at 8:58 am
Great info how to quickly get your site backup. I would love to know more info how to prevent it in the first place. Putting up a new site and not fixing what caused the problem will recreate the situation all over again.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
[...] If you’ve been affected click here on how to remove the hack [...]
May 19th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
As long as I do blogwalking, I have read a lot about preventing to be hacked by upgrading WP to the latest /newest versions. After reading your article above, I realized that my knowledge is very little. I think by ugrading WP to the latest /newest versions and use the plugins from wordpress.org is enough to prevent to be hacked. Apparently there are still many holes for hackers such as through hidden files in a directory and inserted the code into a theme. I never thought of this before. Thank you for this valuable content.
May 25th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
I wish I had found your blog earlier. Gosh took me a week to figure out the Malware problems on my sites. In my case PHP files were re-written.
I did fresh installations initially however I forgot that the scripts were also written in the plugins. After reloading back the data to my server it end up infected again.
So to safe guard some of the scripts (not delete them away), I did what you did, backed up everything, deleted all the files even those outside public_html.
Ran through my antivirus software for the back up data and did a Find & Replace code using Dreamweaver for the malicious scripts.
And finally when I reinstalled wordpress and the plugins back, it is fine now.
But it really took a long time.
Thank you again for the valuable info. Hope my sharing will benefit others too.
June 1st, 2010 at 7:51 am
[...] sites as well, but since often times the way people find me is through the guide I wrote on how to fix WordPress after you’ve been hacked it turns out that’s what they need me to do for them a fair [...]
June 11th, 2010 at 8:12 am
[...] How To Completely Clean Your Hacked WordPress Installation [...]
June 14th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
[...] easy way to check for these types of suspicious entries in a hacked WordPress database is to run the following MySQL query: 1 SELECT * FROM wp_options WHERE (option_id LIKE [...]
June 20th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Had one of my blogs hacked into a few days ago. They didn’t appear to do anything except change the administrator name, email address and password so I thought changing that back would be enough. Didn’t realize that they might do stuff like add files or codes that would allow them back in… Thanks for that information.
I’ll be doing a thorough cleaning of my blog. Sounds like its going to take me a whole day and cause a lot of headaches, though!
June 22nd, 2010 at 2:34 am
Michael, can you tell us what directory permissions you recommend for a working WordPress install? I.e. I find that people say you should not have any writable directories – but if you do that, image upload doesn’t work, etc.
In your opinion, what is the best permissions for a WP install?
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:52 am
Ultimate post. These points are really important and thanks for this because I am sure a small mistake will be the main cause of any kind of loss
July 7th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
[...] – 30 Ways To Secure Your Blog From Attack Anyone Can Do Old WordPress Versions Under Attack How To Completely Clean Your Hacked WordPress Installation Did Your WordPress Site Get [...]
July 11th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
[...] did a little more research, and came across this blog cleaning post, by Michael VanDeMar (michael-at-endlesspoetry.com). He gave all of the tips on how to clean your [...]
July 28th, 2010 at 12:37 am
This definately Works. I though everything was gone when my provider turned me off.
July 28th, 2010 at 8:21 pm
Lisa check these guys out for http://www.dotcomcatcher.com they have wordpress hosting or actually get a hosting account and install wordpress from there value application section takes about 5 min.
July 29th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Being hacked is a violation – Great solution you post here.
Thanks
Thomas Geraets
August 8th, 2010 at 2:40 am
oh, we had mysql injection attack, luckily it only edited index,main,home and ,js files. Took three of us 4 days to clean and another two reinspect, wish would have come across your post earlier,
, thanks though now we know there is better way.
August 11th, 2010 at 4:54 am
Thanks for this great article. I’ve had to deal with three wordpress-hacks this year, so this post helps me a lot!
August 22nd, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Thanks for the post!! This is just what I was looking for. It happened to me last week. I will try this step by step. It makes me a little nervious, because my Data Base is full and I am afraid of loosing the information…
September 1st, 2010 at 12:50 am
Getting hacked is a far too common occurence so this is a great article and very timely
September 1st, 2010 at 10:14 am
[...] Forum Thread on the Pharma Hack Understanding and Cleaning the Pharma Hack on WordPress on Sucuri How to Completely Clean a Hacked WordPress Installation Top 5 WordPress Security Tips You Most Likely Don’t [...]
September 2nd, 2010 at 8:20 pm
It’s really a pain in the …. Been hacked several times last week. This joker somehow got access thru ftp because of a trojan and added a few lines of javascript to every index.php file it could find and any javascript file. So each and every template file was infected as was the index.php file in the root.
September 3rd, 2010 at 5:32 pm
[...] Howo to clean your hacked WordPress installation [...]
September 9th, 2010 at 10:19 am
After I upload the new WP 3.01 and go to the upgrade link to fix the directory access I get this:
Error establishing a database connection
This either means that the username and password information in your wp-config.php file is incorrect or we can’t contact the database server at localhost. This could mean your host’s database server is down.
* Are you sure you have the correct username and password?
* Are you sure that you have typed the correct hostname?
* Are you sure that the database server is running?
If you’re unsure what these terms mean you should probably contact your host. If you still need help you can always visit the WordPress Support Forums.
September 9th, 2010 at 10:20 am
is there a bad bot trap you’d recommend?
September 9th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Thank you for the post. At the moment we are starting to use word press, I heard is better for search engine, and easier to use… I dont know about the search engine part, but It is definitively easier than joomla! Only for that reason is worth it, but we need to restore the information (not for hack uses) Thanks God there are people like you that take some time to share these type of information! Other wise I would be in trouble!
September 22nd, 2010 at 3:02 am
I have started my blog with wordpress. very useful post for the beginners like me.
Thanks once again
September 30th, 2010 at 10:44 am
[...] “How to Completely Clean Your WordPress Installation” by Michael VanDeMar on Smackdown! [...]
October 5th, 2010 at 2:38 am
Thanks for the post!! This is just what I was looking for. It happened to me last week.
October 5th, 2010 at 2:39 am
I would love to know more info how to prevent it in the first place
October 5th, 2010 at 9:44 am
@dini – currently staying up to date with WordPress itself and having a stable, knowledgeable host seem to be the best preventative. The problem is that a new exploit might always get included in a future version, or some new way to hack the hosts themselves discovered. There really is no way to know you are 100% safe.
October 7th, 2010 at 6:57 am
Thank you so much for this great post. This will save me lots of assle and funds instead of having to look for our=tsourcing options to sort the problem out when it arises. Once again thanks.
October 15th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Nothing worse than a hacked WordPress installation… I remember it happened to Chris Pearson once, he got Viagra Spammed in his site links lol.
Thanks for the step by step instructions
October 24th, 2010 at 3:10 am
My WordPress site was hacked. I only changed the theme and it’s working now…
October 24th, 2010 at 10:12 am
tatay – Often times the part of the hack that causes the symptoms is found either in the theme, or in a combination of code in the theme and entries in the database, and changing the theme can indeed make those symptoms go away. The problem is that in the majority of the cases the hackers will just come back again through back doors that are located elsewhere in your installation, back doors that they inserted into your site when they hacked it the first time. Hopefully this is not the case with your site, but if you do get hacked again then you will want to keep this in mind. Good luck.
October 24th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
OMG! thanks for the info Michael. Hope the hacker will not come back.
October 30th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Great info how to quickly get your site backup. I would love to know more info how to prevent it in the first place. Putting up a new site and not fixing what caused the problem will recreate the situation all over again.
November 2nd, 2010 at 8:15 pm
[...] How To Completely Clean Your Hacked WordPress Installation [...]
November 16th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
[...] http://smackdown.blogsblogsblo.....ess-instal… [...]
November 23rd, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Yeah very nice information but it is only basic information. A hacker played with my database. Even if i export all post using export function still i m getting the error in new installation…
November 23rd, 2010 at 3:53 pm
@stylo – Most times the database is messed with. No clue which “the error” you are referring to though.
December 6th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Hi, I just got hacked few hours ago. They completely change my main page and when I try to login using my Admin ID, password no longer accepted. I manage to go to my Control Panel and restore my backup. Very lucky it works. At the point of getting hack, I’m using version 2.8 +.
December 6th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Odds are that you got hacked before a few hours ago and you only just now started to show symptoms. Simply restoring from a backup might not be enough, which is what this whole post is about. Either way, even if the backup is clean if you don’t upgrade you will simply get hacked again. WordPress 2.8 is not secure.
December 12th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Personally I think a complete fresh install is the only solution. You’ll never know what files might be infected.
December 18th, 2010 at 7:38 am
Michael, I was wondering, If your site is hacked and you restore it from a backup. You still don’t fix the exploit the hacker used right? How do I prevent the hacker from using the same method?
Thanks!
December 20th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
@Timothy – well, that’s what this post is about… not restoring from a backup but reinstalling altogether.
December 24th, 2010 at 5:53 am
[...] worth reading through and acting on, as it goes into more depth than this page. You can also read How to clean your hacked install and Removing malware from a WordPress blog which explain in details some steps you might need to [...]
December 27th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
chek my web site
December 27th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
You are right, according to Google you are definitely hacked. Your site does not appear to be WordPress, however, so this article really wouldn’t help you much. I am not sure what exactly it was you were hit with, but you should hire a programmer to go clean it up for you.
January 3rd, 2011 at 8:12 am
Hai….my site has been hacked. I already install with new fress wordpress. But why the hacking website still appear on my website?? and another website I had, I already install with new one, but now there is a problem with the wordpress I think. Because the wordpress themes didn’t appear completely. I try to install with another template, unfortunately the template doesn’t look the same. How can this be happen? Please help me…I’m nearly desperate with this one. thanks
January 30th, 2011 at 7:04 am
[...] around the web produced lots of helpful posts recounting the experiences of others who have addressed similar issues as mine, all of which were very useful in the actions I took to [...]
February 2nd, 2011 at 7:43 am
The people who hack into peoples online businesses and do this sh*t need to get a better hobby.
February 3rd, 2011 at 5:31 am
Great info on how to get your site back working quickly. More info how to prevent it in the first place would be appreciated. Putting up a new site would be a major poin in the freckle.
February 7th, 2011 at 7:35 am
[...] http://smackdown.blogsblogsblo.....ess-instal… [...]
February 16th, 2011 at 5:46 am
[...] referring to How To Completely Clean Your Hacked WordPress Installation and several articles in the WordPress’s Codex regarding installing, restoring and migrating [...]
February 22nd, 2011 at 8:33 am
[...] I found this rather helpful article on Smackdown entitled “How To Completely Clean Your Hacked WordPress Installation” which is packed full of good stuff to help fix your hacked blog, written in a handy [...]
February 23rd, 2011 at 10:17 pm
I got hit last year in the mass Godaddy hack. I have two accounts there, one on a shared server and one on a private IP. The shared one got hacked, which meant I had to do this cleansing process to about a dozen sites
March 2nd, 2011 at 7:10 am
Arrghh. They got me this weekend. This looks like just the thing I need. A bit beyond me but my friend is going to walk me through it. Thanks for posting it – I appreciate your efforts. Cheers Debs
March 13th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
I dont wish it to anybody since I have experienced it myself but that was a neglected error. If I was keeping my plugins up to date that would never happen.
March 15th, 2011 at 12:17 pm
nice post,I experienced the same with my blog
March 24th, 2011 at 8:07 am
[...] VanDeMar to the rescue! VanDeMar is the programmer who wrote this very thorough post about how to clean a hacked site. I had been struggling for more than 12 hours trying to fix things [...]
March 28th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
Our company has several sites down right now so reports are flying and i’ve sent this blog to the boss..
April 2nd, 2011 at 3:30 am
My wp site was hacked first time but I have cleared it and uploaded freshly again it was hacked after a day and have no clue how to recover my site. I am using latest version 3.1 but no security in my site. How can I stop these BS hackers?
April 16th, 2011 at 10:31 am
This post definately saved my ass!!
I had recovered my blog which was hacked by this filezilla trojan (on my PC).
Thanks again!!
April 27th, 2011 at 3:09 am
Amazing work man, I can’t believe it’s this easy- I was spending weeks trying to test my server for hacked files but that’s a nightmare- this eliminates hours of hell and the feeling of “clean” afterwards is much better htan “I hope it’s clean”
May 11th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Yaeh, Im in the same hot sauce,got hacked ok was cool with it got hacked again. This time it too me sometime to find out that the infection was in the wp-content/themes folder. So now I am ready to reinstall…grrr!!!!
June 23rd, 2011 at 3:30 am
[...] been following guidance from Smackdown on cleaning up the hack. Next up will be Hardening WordPress. But between bouts of this unpleasant [...]
June 29th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
[...] recommended in the wordpress.org FAQ on recovering from being hacked to help you do this: Reading How To Completely Clean Hour Hacked WordPress Installation byMichael [...]
September 2nd, 2011 at 1:49 pm
[...] DIY Solution. While I’m not a programmer or a coder, here’s a good how to for those do it yourselfers who want to remove the malware, phishing, and close the exploit from Smackdown. [...]
September 8th, 2011 at 6:30 am
Hi Mike -
I know this post is an old one but want to find out if you could help me with this. I am using RPC protocol to publish posts on to my word press site from a small program that we built. I want to set permalink from my program thru RPC protocol. Is it possible? Can you please guide me in this regard? Thank you -Mady.
September 9th, 2011 at 10:21 am
Mady, honestly I would have to investigate further to see what would be involved. Hit me up through my contact form if you would like to discuss it further.
September 19th, 2011 at 8:33 pm
Hi there, and thank you for this post. I was hacked today, and after working with my web host all day, they think only my wordpress password was hacked. I did delete the users and blog posts added by the hackers added to blog, but I am not comfortable just thinking everything will be ok now. I think my best course of action is going to be to completely re-install WordPress all the plug ins and my theme. My question is two-fold:
1. If I use WP Import after the new reinstall to “import” the files I backed up today, do I risk re-infecting my site? Can the hackers have inserted malicious code there? and
2. In your step No. 4- delete all files in the WP Directory. Can you be more specific, or clarify “WP directory” for us idiots? Suppose I use the “FTP” method, do I just delete every single file and folder under “mysiteurl.com/”?
September 19th, 2011 at 8:38 pm
Oh third question, related to my “No. 2″ above. In terms of deleting the “WP Directory” I asked if every file and folder should be deleted under the folder entitled “mysiteurl.com/”, but that folder is a sub folder of my “root” folder, there are other subfolders in the root (cgi-bin, Stats,etc..) do I delete all of those too?
September 19th, 2011 at 8:52 pm
@Juice –
1) There could be infected code in the database, and I am not certain what all WP import grabs. Usually though with that the biggest concern would be iframes and scripts that were injected into the actual posts. The only entries that would be of concern for re-entry by the hackers would be in wp_options or wp_users.
2) & 3) I would delete everything that is accessible from the web, or everything under what is known as your “web root”. In most cases this will be a directory named either yourdomain.com, public_html, web, or httpdocs, although there are other possibilities. You should not have to delete anything other than what is under that, unless you have moved the .htaccess, php.ini, or wp-config.php into the root.
Also, remember, backup *everything* first, and I would make a separate backup of your uploads directory, and then scan that and make sure that only images are inside of it. If so then you should be able to re-upload that to your fresh installation once you are done.
September 19th, 2011 at 9:39 pm
Thanks so much Michael. The different directories confuse me, naturally. I have a “webroot” file named mydomain.com, which is a sub folder of the main “directory” (if that is what its called). I was thinking I should delete every folder under the main directory (like the cgi-bin, stats,etc.). Earlier I did back up my uploads folder and looked through, but the files all looked normal to me- I am not sure I would recognize something malicious… I did do a WP import back up last week, maybe I should just reinstall WP and my theme from scratch, and then upload last week’s back up, then I only lose today’s post. Is it possible that the hackers hacked days ago, but their malicious activity only appeared today, for the first time? thanks again, you’re help has been invaluable!
September 21st, 2011 at 4:07 am
Well, I deleted all my site directory files and started from scratch today. After installing WP and Theme from brand new downloads, I imported an old WP back up and an old theme back up. Then I added the /uploads/ file that I had backed up yesterday(post hack). I went about trying to rebuild my site until at 11 PM tonight, for the third day in a row, a new unauthorized WP User appeared in my admin panel. I deleted the user and began the password, secret key changes, while alerting my host once more to the problem. I honestly don’t know what to do anymore. I am lost.
October 6th, 2011 at 5:34 pm
I completely dumped my old wp files folders directory structure, the whole shabbang. How the heck can my fresh wp and plugins install still have malware links (months old) in my wp-includes/feed-rss2.php? according to a well known security host these bad links were pulled up by looking through my sites feed at the source code!
October 6th, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Kenneth, I would need to actually go into your site and do a scan and some checks to see what was up. I wish I could be more help but there are just too many things that could be going on to know without looking.
October 6th, 2011 at 5:41 pm
ok, well thanks for the speedy reply! ill be in touch soon
October 10th, 2011 at 11:42 am
4 days ago 3 of my websites were infected with malware. One was picked up by Google and is now flagged for avoidance.
I have spent hours upon hours fixing this problem, yet every time the .htaccess files are reinfected with redirects to a Russian site of some description.
- When I cleaned the sites I changed all the passwords for FTP, site admin, and database. I deleted cookie logon function by resetting WP secret keys. I installed Bulletproof Security to protect .htaccess and my wp-config folder. This hasn’t worked, they just bypass it. The hackers also won’t let me resave the file when i delete their hack, instead making me have to download the file and then upload it clean.
- I thought the hack had come through filezilla. So I stopped cleaning through that and instead started using Go Daddy file manager to clean the reinfected .htaccess flles. But no, reinfection within 7 hours. Go Daddy, as per usual, don’t have a clue what I should even be looking for.
- I also installed site DB backups but that didn’t make a difference. Neither did the plugin upgrades or WP upgrades I did when the sites were clean, which they were because i scanned them at sucuri.net.
- I have scanned every line of php for bad code using the advice on forums like this one and blogs, etc. I can’t see anything untoward and just don’t know what to do. As far as I can see this is purely the .htaccess file that is getting attacked. I have even completely deleted the file yet they keep putting a new one in.
- one thing i find strange is that it only attacked these 3 sites. I have 3 other WordPress sites on the same hosting that it hasn’t affected. I have a feeling it got to my root site first and worked into the others, but then I don’t know how these things work so i am probably wrong. Could there be one file in the root that is triggering all this?
If you have any clue what i should be looking for I would greatly appreciate any advice. I can’t afford to shed out $100 each for a site clean, hell, the sites are more sentimental than valuable.
Thank you.
October 15th, 2011 at 11:57 pm
[...] How To Completely Clean Your Hacked WordPress Installation by Michael VanDeMar. Many people found this post useful. I’m not touching my database though, at least not yet [...]
October 18th, 2011 at 8:13 am
Just discovered a site I redesigned has been injected – AVG warning appeared on Thursday, Oct. 13. Need to present site at the end of the month – can someone please contact me at dgolden@nasbp.org for assistance and quote? Site is suretyinfo.org. Thanks.
October 23rd, 2011 at 2:27 pm
[...] this ever happens to your wordpress site, I found that this and this were useful sources of information. Hope you never need them [...]
October 28th, 2011 at 12:01 pm
Thanks for the helpful info. Too bad this is a continuing problem.
Mike
November 11th, 2011 at 1:11 am
hi michael, i really need your help, i got redirect blog problem. After someone type keyword in google browse n click my blog (wordpress), he will get my blog just a few second. after that, he will redirect to other website, what i’ve to do to solve this problem? i’m really happy if you give me the solution n send to my email: iyan_41@yahoo.com
November 21st, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Cleaning a 3 GB space in my host is killing me, and i can not find the source of infection for 3 weeks. Damn. Thank you for the post, now i have few more places to look
December 3rd, 2011 at 6:09 pm
Just wanna say a big thank you to Michael for rescuing my blog. Excellent service at a fair price too!
December 13th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
[...] How to completely clean your hacked WordPress installation was another good one – not as labor intensive, but it brought up things I hadn’t considered, and made me more aware of what I was doing. (It’s always good to be aware of what you’re doing when your digging into code!) [...]
December 13th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
Ah, Michael, you’re a lifesaver! Thanks for the handy tip. I was NOT looking forward to editing 103 pages to correct those silly apostrophes!
December 13th, 2011 at 5:31 pm
@Jordan, No problem, glad I could help.
January 1st, 2012 at 11:14 am
this is very good info however i was wondering if you had any insight on special characters showing up in posts? i have searched high and low, got some instruction on how to delete them from my cpanel with no success. help! if you can. I do not want to delete my whole blog of two years work.
January 1st, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Cathy, that is something that I can usually fix, but how I fix it depends on how they got there in the first place and what the underlying cause of the character conversion is, and what, if anything, you did already to attempt to fix them. Feel free to hit me up via my contact form if you need help cleaning them out.
January 5th, 2012 at 7:35 am
Hi everyone,
I really need help! I have a new website for my business, few days ago I noticed on the footer the line sayin sintax error footer.php line 3. I checked with an antivrus plugin and coming up with virus, so I update wordpress, I change all my passwords and delate all the pages,plugin,post,pictures,everything (i have a backup)
But still there is that line and the home page layout is messed up.
What can I do? Do i have to delate something from the cpanel?
Sorry I am very new to these things!
Thak you !
Martina
January 23rd, 2012 at 12:50 pm
Hi,
one of my blogs is infected by Trojan.JS.Iframe.ARU (Engine A)
Does anyone know if there is a plugin that can helps me to remove or check the wordpress installation ?
Thanks
February 9th, 2012 at 5:48 am
All my sites got infected with a decode_base64 script in the last 3 weeks and I am trying to save everything. It’s a slow process. This article took me a while to find, but I am hoping the tips will help.
I tried to manually clean the php files from Filezilla, and like so many others, within hours they were modified again. Now it seems every “<?php" statement has the script added to it, as many as 50 lines of code to update in many files.
I am hoping to get into my site to export the database as xml, so I can rebuild it on a new host. I do have an SQL export, but not a WP export unfortunately.
It just proves you can never have enough backups, and in this case ALL my domains on the host caught the same infection.
February 9th, 2012 at 10:57 am
@Tony – regarding all of your sites on the same host, with most shared hosting accounts that let you host multiple sites under one account that is what will happen… one gets hit, they all get hit.
February 21st, 2012 at 12:27 pm
It’s funny but the site i’m trying to fix is hosted on your recommended host Hostgator.
So much for that.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:37 am
how do u copy your images from your uploaded files (to back up your hacked site), if u can t have access any more to your admin in wordpress?
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:40 am
Joe, unfortunately security holes in hosting isn’t the only way that hackers can get in, so even on the best host if there is an old back door or vulnerable script on the site, or if someone with ftp access to the site gets a virus, the sites can still get hacked.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:41 am
@shalhevet – you need to use ftp to access the uploads directory and download them all. Make you you verify there is nothing but images in the folder before re-uploading them to the cleaned site as well.
February 24th, 2012 at 7:00 pm
[...] http://smackdown.blogsblogsblo.....ess-instal… [...]
February 27th, 2012 at 9:40 am
[...] Go see WordPress guru Michael VanDeMar (How To Completely Clean Your WordPress Installation) [...]
March 9th, 2012 at 12:10 am
[...] 3-How To Completely Clean Your Hacked WordPress Installation. I had already said a prayer and that didn’t help. Since I was doing this myself, there was only one thing left to do. It was the last resort but there seem to be no other way. The site would have to be taken down. Yes, this means hours of work but there was no other way. Those hackers were quite sneaky when they hacked my WordPress. They were much more knowledgeable in the ways of the code than I. [...]
March 15th, 2012 at 9:01 pm
[...] How To Completely Clean Your Hacked WordPress Installation [...]
March 19th, 2012 at 8:40 am
Great info thanks! I had an iframe injection virus of some sort – every instance of index.php had an iframe appended.
March 27th, 2012 at 7:57 am
[...] to save yourself some time in the process. Of course, you can always go through your database and use commands such as this to find malicious content in it:Scan all your filesThis is the first thing I would do after [...]
March 30th, 2012 at 3:43 am
Thanks mate, you helped me fix the blog that’s linked above. Great stuff.
April 2nd, 2012 at 7:35 am
how i can clear this harm AS8426 (CLARANET)?
please help
April 6th, 2012 at 9:50 pm
[...] http://smackdown.blogsblogsblo.....ess-instal… [...]
April 18th, 2012 at 9:52 am
So, my site is hacked and redirecting. When I export my wp data to xml I can see the offending hack. At the very end of the xml, is:
It is the script which is the problem.
problem is, I cannot figure out how to remove it from the existing site! I could rebuild the site the scratch, which seems like overkill. I would rather just find and remove that one line of code, but I don’t know how to find it in the database, and it doesn’t show up in any greps of the source files, etc.
April 18th, 2012 at 9:53 am
shoot, that didn’t work, the code block I just posted didn’t show….
April 18th, 2012 at 9:54 am
lets try this:
/item
/channel
/rss
script src=”http://greedc57upelev.rr.nu/nl.php?p=d”
/script
April 18th, 2012 at 11:16 am
vytas – if that is showing in your xml export then odds are the injection would be in your database, not your files (although there may be a back door injected into your files as well). Try running this inside of a query window in phpmyadmin and see what comes up:
SELECT * from wp_posts WHERE post_content LIKE ‘%rr.nu%’
See if that helps narrow it down.
April 26th, 2012 at 7:38 am
Thank you so much for this,working on hack attempts which effect wordpress blogs is very frustrating and now thanks to your amazing post which is really helpful it is now much easier.
June 15th, 2012 at 10:42 am
MICHAEL! IVE been hacked and have no idea how to fix it within my server or anywhere else. I need your help! I read a thread about a guy named lixation that you helped fix the same issue. Please help in any way you can. TY
christine
June 21st, 2012 at 5:13 pm
[...] There are lots of how-tos and guides online, but most of them are outdated. The pharma hack has evolved (1,2,3). [...]
June 22nd, 2012 at 7:25 pm
[...] worth reading through and acting on, as it goes into more depth than this page. You can also read How to clean your hacked install and Removing malware from a WordPress blog which explain in details some steps you might need to [...]
June 24th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
[...] http://wordpress.org/support/t.....st-1065779 http://smackdown.blogsblogsblo.....ess-instal… http://ottopress.com/2009/hack.....backdoors/ tutorial how to fix hacked WP blog: [...]
June 27th, 2012 at 11:10 am
[...] Cleaning hacked WordPress installation (Blogsblogsblogs.com) Filed Under: SEO Tips [...]
June 29th, 2012 at 3:14 am
Hi. I was the administrator of a site that got hit by malicious script and has been named as an attack site by Google about 2 months ago. (www.pasmi.org) I copied the pages and posts to my new blog (above) that I am building and when I try to get into the text now it won’t let me open up the edit pages as they are connected to the pasmi site (ie attack site). How can I get access to this text now? I am no longer administrator of http://www.pasmi.org, so I can’t fix that site directly.
Appreciate your help. Cheers
June 29th, 2012 at 9:27 am
@Penelope – I am unsure, because I can’t tell exactly what you mean when you say that the pages are “connected” to the old site, but my guess is that if you were to use a Search and Replace plugin to change all instances of the old domain to the new one in your blog then you would no longer have those issues.
July 3rd, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Hi Michael,
I am not sure what is happening with mu URL. My database was hacked so after much deliberating I decided on a fresh re-install. However after 2 days of being clear of all WP files, Goolge are still redirecting my url to a malware prevention site. Is it possible that there are still files on my account I can’t find?
I am at the end of my tether now and I really don’t know what to do!
Thanks,
Laura
July 3rd, 2012 at 3:23 pm
@Laura – it is possible that you missed something, but it is also possible that you caught everything and Google just hasn’t noticed yet. The results in the search engines are not live, and a good portion of your site needs to be re-crawled by Google before thy will remove the malware warning on their own. However, if you sign up for a Google Webmaster Tools account, add and verify your site through there, and then submit a Google Reconsideration Request through that control panel, in most cases Google will check your site within 12 hours and either clear the flag or let you know that you missed something somewhere. If you would like help with all of that it usually only take me about 15 minutes at most to do the whole process, feel free to hit me up via my contact form.
July 6th, 2012 at 1:36 am
Hi Michael,
I appreciate your article. My wordpress site was hacked recently and I still haven’t been able to find a solution despite following all the instructions on this page. I started a help thread on wordpress.org with still no solution: http://wordpress.org/support/t.....st-2932557
I’m not sure what to do! I’ve deleted my entire wordpress site and uploaded a fresh new copy of wordpress, 2012 theme, plugins.. but 2 hours later a “wp-main.php” file pops up in my folder which I cannot remove. If I delete it, it will reappear almost instantly.
I’m suspecting maybe my database is hacked, but I’m not sure what to do
Hoping you can provide some assistance.
Thanks for reading
July 9th, 2012 at 3:43 am
Hi Michael,
I am looking for an expert to clean my server, a few of my sites are infected. Are you able to help please?
January 7th, 2013 at 10:49 pm
Thanks for your detailed tutorial. It really helped me a lot
January 14th, 2013 at 3:05 pm
thanks for this great information. i was looking for it since my wordpress dashboard is acting weirdo. i will be reinstalling fresh WordPress script. thanks for providing the right procedure.
March 20th, 2013 at 8:58 am
Hi Michael, I contacted you via email yesterday but thought I would post this question on here for others benefit. Having had my website hacked by a malware that deleted all of the files on my server, when I come to: 4. Delete all of the files and folders in the WP directory, either through FTP (slower) or through cPanel’s File Manager (faster). – Should I delete all of the files in the public_html folder?
March 23rd, 2013 at 5:22 pm
Right now my site is hacked!
– reseller host on webhosting buzz
Can anyone help me?
March 24th, 2013 at 1:30 am
@Olly – it depends. If you have more than just WordPress in your public_html then everything needs to be examined one way or another. If you have other scripts, such as Joomla or a forum, then those too might have back doors on them.
April 8th, 2013 at 2:11 pm
@Michael,
I am hacked also to Russian porn site! Help! I have reseller hosting with certifiedhosting.com
April 10th, 2013 at 9:00 am
[...] barn door after the horses got out, and stronger measures may be necessary (up to and including rebuilding the whole installation in some cases). The WordPress plugin repositories are supposed to be a trusted source. Not being [...]
April 14th, 2013 at 9:46 pm
[...] How To Completely Clean Your Hacked WordPress Installation [...]
April 15th, 2013 at 3:51 am
Oh man. Is there any way you’d be willing to do these steps for a nonprofit that’s been hacked? I’d totally pay you, this sounds like gibberish to a non-savvy person like me….my nonprofit supports deployed troops, so if you’re interested in assisting….I’d give you a huge cyberhug. And the going rate for your time. Please please please…..
April 15th, 2013 at 3:53 pm
@Sandy – I emailed you. If you didn’t get it check your spam folder.
April 20th, 2013 at 7:33 am
awesome article man ! well written and superb guidelines
April 21st, 2013 at 2:58 am
I tried to manually clean the php files from Filezilla, and like so many others, within hours they were modified again. Does anyone know if there is a plugin that can helps me to remove or check the wordpress installation ?
April 25th, 2013 at 3:39 pm
[...] This one is a perfect example of why automated scans are often not sufficient when cleaning up a hacked WordPress installation. You can see the full file here: [...]
April 29th, 2013 at 12:15 am
[...] How To Completely Clean Your Hacked WordPress Installation [...]
May 15th, 2013 at 4:40 am
[...] If we take a moment to consider high-profile WordPress security exploits in recent years, every single one has targeted known vulnerabilities that are easily fixed with a simple update. As soon as an update becomes available, the vulnerability essentially ceases to be a WordPress problem and instead becomes an end user responsibility. This reality is underlined by the experience of Michael VanDeMar — a guy who "de-hacks" and secures WordPress installations for a living (in fact, he wrote a popular guide on de-hacking WordPress): [...]
May 20th, 2013 at 11:29 pm
Please someone help me my website http://www.zombieinfoguide on a blue razor server was hacked by someone in Turkey. Blue razor has no back up because the hack is older then the back up. Blue razor told me that they files were in the server and to find a word press expert to try to get the site back. If anyone can help me please call me at toll free 1-888-578-7324
Barry