WordPress Security Bournemouth, Dorset

WordPress is a heavily used platform for blogs, websites, and eCommerce stores all around the world. The sheer number of sites out there using it makes the platform itself a target to hackers. If you want to talk about securing your website please get in contact using the form below or give me a call on 07878178336.

What happens if a WordPress website has been hacked?

Once your site has been comprised, your data as well as your customer data could be out in the public domain. Meaning you need to inform all your customers of the breach and that their details have been accessed. Not all attacks are this severe but even low-level attacks will be flagged in search engines like Google.

Even a low level breach of the WordPress site will result in this message being shown and obviously this will deter all customers from your site straight to your competitors. Google show this because the injected files may be redirecting your customers to dangerous pages where they may served spam ads or even forced to download malware virus scripts.

This message can show for up to 10 days AFTER the website has been fixed and submitted to Google for approval.

Unmaintained and unupdated WordPress builds and plugins are amongst the most vulnerable to this and very prone to attacks. I offer hosting that will take care of critical file updates for you, so you have peace of mind that your site is up to date.

This is not always enough, it is advised to have a full site audit where files and folders can be checked for user permissions and even software installed and set up to offer ongoing site scans and prevent brute force attacks. You need tools in place that not only try to prevent hacking attempts but that also notify you if and when they happen, so you can be reactive. Having full site backups is useful when files have been tampered with and this is offered in my base WordPress web hosting package.

There is no silver bullet to keeping your WordPress website safe but by taking all the right precautions you are covering yourself as much as you can and this will hugely lower the risk of an attack. Now, this goes for all websites but it is crucial If you have any kind of payment part to your site, say for example you use WooCommerce. WooCommerce security is crucial, you owe it to your users to be doing as much as you can to keep that data safe. Having your website hacked affects your sales and your reputation, so make sure you are safe.

If you do nothing about your updates and just leave the site to fend for itself, you are leaving it in a very vulnerable position where it will almost certainly be breached given time.

If you are struggling to understand this, you can watch Google’s overview here.

Please don’t think of this as a scaremongering post, the threat is very real. You only have to Google ‘WordPress site hacked’ to see how frequently this happens. If you would like to discuss strengthening your website security or cleaning up a hacked WordPress build then feel free to get in contact using the form below or give me a call on 07878178336..