Beware: hijacking ahead

blog cover image
75
5.1K followers

My Mistake

I made a mistake that is common when you are not paying attention. I did not make sure that my site was secure and found out today that I had other people trying to take my site from me. I advise everyone to double check their security to protect their sites. If you do not know how to do it then ask your mentor or get in touch with site support for ways to be safe. There is also the training that is provided in the OEC classrooms. Please do not make the same mistake that I made. I was lazy please do not follow my example. PROTECT YOUR WEBSITE!!!

Website Hijacking

While we all are doing what we are supposed to do on our websites, others are looking for any opportunity to exploit any weaknesses found on your website security. I was shocked today when I started checking my emails and found several notifications from word press saying I had new users. I found further down my emails that I also had notifications that the password to my website had been changed. I immediately contacted site support and they advised me to change my password which I did immediately.

I have been unable, at this point, to determine if any of my content has been altered in any way. I will have to go through it line by line to make that determination. If I find that it has been altered, I will delete that particular post just to be on the safe side. I would rather lose a post than face litigation because of a thief and/or hacker.

SECURITY

We have wonderful security here at WA. It is up to each of us to keep our security up to date. Site Support can help us but it still up to us to make sure our security is up to date. My misfortune was due to laziness on my part. I am thankful that site support was able to help me with this, had they not been able to help me then I would have lost two websites and possibly faced litigation because someone tried to hijack and hack my sites. BEWARE!!!! You need to check the security on your websites periodically to keep any threats away.

I am one of the lucky ones. I feel for those people who have lost a site due to a hijacking. All of the lost time and effort that was put into the content, research and trust that was built could have been prevented. Security is a big issue at the moment with all the global shutdowns. People are looking for an easy way to make money. They would rather steal your work as opposed to doing the work for themselves.

Please like, share and comment if so inclined.

Jerry

Login
Create Your Free Wealthy Affiliate Account Today!
icon
4-Steps to Success Class
icon
One Profit Ready Website
icon
Market Research & Analysis Tools
icon
Millionaire Mentorship
icon
Core “Business Start Up” Training

Recent Comments

130

Wordpress being the most used cms by far, is also the most targeted by hackers as one would expect.

Wordpress and good plugins developers work hard on keeping our websites safe, as well as most hosting providers, but we must make our part of the job.

Most attacks happen through vulnerabilities found on our websites, and rarely happen by someone directly hacking the server, because it’s much harder to hack a server than to hack a website created with a cms platform many times created by non-techy people.

Usually vulnerabilities are found and fixed (with updates) after someone exploits them, so there will always be hacking. But we can really make the life harder to hackers if we keep our websites as safe as possible. Why will a hacker spend days trying to hack a well protected website if he can hack several unprotected on that time?

So it is fundamental to keep wordpress itself always updated to the latest version (always do backups before doing this because sometimes wordpress upgrades can break somethings). Always update plugins to the latest version. Be careful with the plugins you are using, specially if installing a plugin from a zipfile from a random source. Only use the plugins you really need, and ideally those most used from trusted developers. If you have installed plugins that you are not using, uninstall them... it’s even better than just deactivating them. Those are just some of the things we can do, but the main ones.

I’ve also been hacked in the past, and not only with wordpress, and it is a real pain in the a$$ to recover from it, even if you have backups, because your backups will probably be compromised also, and you will loose hours or days just testing out backups, trying to figure if it is not compromised, and when you find a clean backup, you will have to figure out what content you created since that day, comments, etc

Just to finish, great you were able get things solved.

I was lucky to have found the breach in security as early as I did.I will be paying closer attention from now on.
Jerry

Something happened when I was still very new, a member wrote here his site had been hijacked and we should check our sites, so I thought I`d give my site a good look.
For whatever reason, someone had hijacked my site and installed spammy affiliate links promoting T-shirts. I was horrified, how could this happen.
Later I saw that the URL had been blocked by Google but still, it gave me a good scare for I could not explain how they could insert links on my blog.
Thanks for the reminder.

Try not to be lazy as I was. It sometimes takes a wake up call for any of us to take action.
Jerry

Hi, Jerry, you will be pleased that you got that one sorted, it can be easy to overlook somethings when it comes to maintenance.

A timely reminder given the current state of the world, some folks will always look for the easy option even if others suffer because of their actions.
Alex

I am finding that periodic housekeeping helps maintain security on my sites.
Jerry

Good morning Jerry,

I hope you're doing well, I'm sorry that you have been having a few problems. I appreciate the reminder to keep an eye on security, it is so important after all our efforts.

I've often thought it would be a good idea to receive a pin to our mobile phone before we login, maybe this can happen in the future.

Have a great day.

Roy

The problems that I am experiencing are from my own laziness.
Jerry

We cannot assume that any one, every one has a moral compass and uses it. Jerry,I'm glad you shared what happened to you.

The proverbial message, #6, says a thief eats to satisfy his hunger.
Well what the heck could possibly be wrong with that?
First he broke in to your stuff.
Then his idea of hunger is that it's insatiable! He's a bottomless pit! They take all if they can get all.
They are cowardly deceivers that, run away, and in the non-virtual world, blend back into your friends, family, neighborhood, near to someone who knows you.
Finally they falsely believe you are the stupid one and they are they smart one. They got in, they got out! And it coup on you.

It's like your dog is home all day and bored.

Now, if your dogs are like mine and have engineering degrees, and all day, while you are at work, to figure extensive plans and back up plans to get out of the yard. Dog will succeed and get the desired outcome! They are building or planning to build tunnels right now, in their sleep!

Lock down is just an excuse. Excuse from M. Webster is an invalid reason for lack of duty.
A character of morals, and a moral compass? If you don't stand for something, then you'll fall for anything.

Basically Jerry, I wholly agree with you.
Just Zaying, Suzay

I like the country reference at the end of your post, Suzay! 😎

Jeff

I am in the process of changing my dog's education to observation only.
Jerry

Jerry,
Teach 'em piano. Of course, you have to show them that singing is OK at piano time.
You must demonstrate singing to dog, and encourage them, and they will like this.
Dog are the original, perPETual children. They will think this game is very cool, as they aim to please their master and love to whole body dog-laugh with you, for you, and some times at you!
You might say this is a Howl ! And, so it is.

They also are so relieved when you, Jerry are the Alpha, so they don't have to be.
Mine love praying with Mommy too. So I'd explain to them that I have an Alpha and Omega too. And so that I was relieved that I didn't have to deal with all the responsibility of that job. Alpha to Omega, no way! I'm only going to be here so long. Whew!

I caught Rikki blowing kisses to the children riding in a car along side of us. The kids were blowing Rik kisses back!
I trained my dogs well, and they taught me about LOVE, FORGIVE Quickly, and because time is short for pets: Run After Those You Love!!

Suzay

See more comments

Login
Create Your Free Wealthy Affiliate Account Today!
icon
4-Steps to Success Class
icon
One Profit Ready Website
icon
Market Research & Analysis Tools
icon
Millionaire Mentorship
icon
Core “Business Start Up” Training