My Blog Was Hacked – What I Learned

Last night before bed I scheduled my post about the anniversary of The Family Circus comic strip to post just after midnight and went to sleep. I awoke this morning and wanted to check my overnight stats, but when I tried to log in I found that my blog was hacked. Someone changed my login credentials, both username and password, which I discovered when I tried to change my password through the usual means and was presented with a username I’ve NEVER used.

When I discovered it I was eating breakfast before leaving for work and did not have time to devote to solving the problem, so I spent most of the day dreading what someone might be doing to my blog or what they might be posting under my name.

So, as soon as I arrived back at the hotel I contacted my hosting service and found a way I could go in through “the back” so to speak using my hosting credentials to reset my username and password for the blog. While in the files I looked around (even though I’m nowhere near conversant enough with my database details to know what I was looking at) to see if I could find any obvious changes or dates/times when this could have happened.

Nothing.

I’m at a loss to explain how it might have happened. I haven’t added any new software to the blog; I’ve kept WordPress itself updated as each new release comes out; my password was rated strong (my new password is rated VERY strong), and I’ve never given my username/password out to anyone.

I was also confused as to why anyone would bother to do all this and then do nothing over the following 12-18 hours to make use of the site…until I read this. Seems like there are other reasons for hacking into a lowly WordPress blog.

Anyway, that’s the best I was able to come up with and I’m just glad I was able to get back control of my blog. Oh, and for good measure I removed the login meta links from my blog pages, just to remove the temptation of anyone who might be so inclined to try and use them. The upside is that I learned some new ways to work behind the scenes of my blog. But if any of my friends or computer whizzes are reading this and have any further information as to what might have happened and why I’d love to read it.

In the meantime, stay safe out there.