If you already have this thinking, “My site is too small / new / local. What could hackers expect from him? “It's time to change your tone. Hackers aren't just trying to rip off big companies. They are just looking for any vulnerabilities they can exploit.
So, the next time you think, “I have nothing they want,” consider the following opportunities they can take advantage of:
1. Inject malicious content
In some cases, hacking is simply getting malicious content or code on the front end of your WordPress site in the hope that your visitors will then click on the stray links. This can happen through comment spam, hijacking your site's email address, and sending spam messages to your subscribers or through content submissions.
2. Spread viruses
Another way the hackers aim to terrorize your visitors is by using your WordPress site to spread viruses and malware. They can do this using malicious code that they wrote in the backend or with files that they uploaded for upload to the frontend. When visitors interact with them, hackers then steal information from visitors or use their computers to spread viruses to other sites.
3. Stealing personal information from visitors
This is the one your visitors are obviously most worried about and the one you should hope never happens because it is very expensive. Granted, any security breach is bad for business, but it also means having to compensate your visitors and customers for the money and privacy compromised in the attack. Not to mention their loss of confidence in your brand.
Hackers can get this information in a number of ways, and there are a number of things they can do with it. Sometimes it's for their own personal gain, but sometimes it's like hack Ashley Madison where they are trying to make some sort of statement.
4. Steal private company information
Companies work very hard to keep the details of their business - especially when it comes to finances and accounts receivable details. That is why it is extremely important not to synchronize this information with the corresponding company site.
The Heartbleed vulnerability is a recent example of this type of attack and it stems from an issue with OpenSSL - something created to be better protect the Web sites. Instead, OpenSSL ended up handing sensitive data to hackers when they sent bogus requests to servers at affected sites.
5. Host phishing pages from your server
Phishing on websites basically refers to when hackers create a fake page on your WordPress site with the aim of collecting information from visitors who want to give it to them. They can do this by integrating a Contact form on the page and collecting information directly or they may redirect visitors to another website where that information will then be collected.
Google blacklists 50 websites each week in because of phishing scams.
6. Host legitimate pages from your server
Some hackers may indeed take the time to build legitimate pages on WordPress sites in order to improve their SEO. These pages talk about their own business and link to it in order to give their site more weight in search. Or they may choose to skip the landing page and instead use a more subtle approach to drive SEO. In this case, they would use a backlinks system from your site to theirs.
7. Overload your web server
When hackers overload your web server with an influx of hits, it's called a Distributed Denial of Service (or DDoS) attack. Once they hit that threshold, your site goes down and they win. Why would they do this? What could they get from taking your site offline? Well, it could be for bragging rights. Maybe it's because they have a personal vendetta against the brand behind the site. Perhaps the site is just one of many victims of a major widespread attack. Or maybe they did it to demand a ransom.
8. Steal your server bandwidth
You probably know that people might knowingly or unknowingly steal images from your WordPress site. One of the ways this happens is through hotlinking, which effectively turns your site into a place ofaccommodation for traffic from other sites through your linked images.
However, there are other ways for hackers to steal your server resources to host their own malicious activities, such as bitcoin mining and brute force attacks on other websites. This is exactly what happened in the case of the Monero mining hack in which the hacked sites became “slaves” used in the mining activities of the hackers.
9. Vandalize your website
And, of course, there is vandalism on the website. For the most part, hackers do this to establish a calling card for themselves while simultaneously hurting your brand. One of these downgrades happened to a lot of WordPress sites - and continued to happen even after WordPress released the patch because users couldn't update on time.
So, after all of this, do you still think you're safe? You must immediately take the necessary measures for this.
