07 Most Common WordPress Attacks And How To Prevent Them [Guide 2026]

Powering over 43% of sites worldwide, WordPress is clearly the most used content management system in the world. However, this popularity comes at the pesky cost of vulnerability. 

Since so many stores and businesses use WordPress, it is also one of the best choices for hackers. In fact, a security report by Wordfence found that over 90,000 attacks are done on WordPress every minute, accentuating the importance of cybersecurity. 

This is why, in this article, you are going to learn everything you need to know about the seven most common cyberattacks, their impacts, solutions, and what you can do to prevent them in the future.

Let’s begin.

07 Most Common WordPress Attacks 

Cybermagzine claimed cybercrime would cost $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, which kind of makes sense considering the fact that around 4000 cyber attacks happen every day, and every 14 seconds, a business falls victim to a deadly malware, such as ransomware. 

This section will help you understand the most common WordPress attacks to prevent you from being a part of the statistics. 

#1: Brute Force Attack

Let’s start with one of the most common WordPress attacks: the brute force attack. It uses trial and error to “guess” a user’s password by using multiple combinations with automated bots. These bots can try millions of password variations in seconds, cracking weaker passwords in less than seconds.

Not to mention the emergence of artificial intelligence, which is exacerbating the situation by enabling faster and more intelligent password-guessing techniques using advanced algorithms, cracking even the most complex passwords.

These automated machines start from the most common passwords and lately advance to more complex combinations. Although this can be avoided by using super strong passwords, unfortunately, it is not as straightforward because there are tons of other kinds of brute force attacks that use further techniques that enhance their rate of success. Such as:

• A dictionary attack occurs when hackers use a list of the most common words. 
• Leetspeak attack is when letters are substituted for their closest symbol, such as “E” becomes “3” and “S” becomes “$.”
• Credential stuffing, where hackers use compromised login combinations found from previous data breaches to infiltrate one or multiple systems.
• A hybrid brute force attack happens when a hacker combines a dictionary attack with a simpler brute force. It starts with the hacker knowing a username, and then they use both dictionary and brute force techniques to find the correct account login combination.

Similarly, cyberattackers may also use phishing scams (more on this later) along with brute force attacks to extract sensitive information and then use that extracted information to guess passwords. For instance, the hacker may try to extract the victim’s pet’s name and then try variations of the pet’s name.

How To Prevent Brute Force and Other Password-Guessing Attacks?

First and foremost, remember not to use easy-to-guess passwords, which includes avoidance from using any word or sentence that may relate to you in any way. For example, avoid using your spouse’s, children’s, pet’s, or your own birthday. In fact, avoid using any important date you may have shared with the public. Here’s what else you can do: 

• Use complex passwords. Always ensure your passwords are a combination of upper and lowercase letters, symbols, special characters, and numbers. Make sure your passwords are at least 12 characters long.
• Limit login attempts. Limiting the total number of attempts traps hackers after a number of attempts, making it impossible for the perpetrator to carry out a brute force attack. You can easily enable this feature with All-in-One Login. Here’s how to do it: How to Implement WordPress Limit Login Attempts [3 Easy Steps]
• Enable 2FA or MFA. Two-factor authentication or multi-factor authentication assists against brute force attacks by requiring another verification factor using the admin’s phone, even if the password is correct. This strategy helps against credential stuffing or stolen credentials. Check out the documentation: How to Set Up Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for WordPress [3 Easy Steps]
• Enable reCAPTCHA. Enable reCAPTCHA to prevent bot logins. The latest version of reCAPTCHA can easily distinguish between a bot and a user, allowing users to enter without tedious tests. Check out the guide: How to Add CAPTCHA to WordPress Login in 03 Easy Steps.
• Change the admin URL. By default, adding /wp-login.php/ against your domain can lead you to the WordPress login page. You can change this URL to something more confidential using All-in-One Login.

#2: Phishing Attack

Every 1 of the 4,200 emails is a phishing email. This attack uses deception techniques, such as social engineering, manipulation, lying, concealing information, or equivocation to trick users into divulging their sensitive information, including login credentials, credit or debit card information, social security numbers, etc.

Phishing attacks usually utilize emails, text messages, or fraudulent websites to trap victims.  

The hack is usually carried out by hackers posing as someone close to you or an official requesting sensitive information to perform a check or verification. For instance, you may receive an email from a fake bank employee requesting access to your account for an unreal, made-up urgent problem.

Or an attacker setting up a sense of urgency. For example, an email with a subject line stating your account is at serious risk and complying with the hacker’s demand can help avoid the potential problem.

Unlike brute force attacks, these can happen outside the internet as well. Such attacks are known as vishing—which is short for voice-phishing—and refer to when attackers use their voice either via phone call or in-person to trick and squeeze the sensitive information from the victim. 

How To Prevent Phishing or Vishing?

Since it often involves emails or text messages, being vigilant about incoming texts can help. Here’s what to do: 

• Don’t respond to suspicious emails. Emails offering deals that are too good to be true or provoking emails persuading you to take certain actions immediately to avoid massive danger are solid signs of a phishing email.
• Look for patterns. Since phishing emails are often sent in bulk, these emails lack personalization. Instead of the recipient’s name after the greetings, there would be general greetings. Other signs include:
  • Poor grammar and spelling errors. Phishing emails are often poorly written, with grammatical errors and typos.
  • Unusual or off-looking design. The email may feature an unusual layout, mismatched fonts, or images that don’t align with the authentic organization’s branding.
  • Lack of contact information. Legitimate companies usually end the emails, leaving room for potential conversation, and phishing emails are often left without contact information.
  • The sender’s name differs from the email address. Another prominent sign can be the sender’s name not matching the name of the email address. Also, these emails are often created with absurd email services.

• Avoid downloading attachments. No matter how legitimate the email looks, never download the attachment unless you are entirely certain about the sender’s position, why they are sending this email, and if downloading the file would help the situation. 
• Hang up on suspicious calls. If you suspect a call is fraudulent, hang up and don’t engage with the caller.
• Always check for an SSL certificate. If a site redirects you to another website, look for the padlock icon that ensures the authenticity of the website. Otherwise, cyberattacks can eavesdrop on sensitive information. 
• Request proof from officials. If the caller seems unprofessional or spammer, ask for a proof, such as their employee code and verify it before interacting further.

#3: Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attack

A DDoS attack occurs when an enormous number of compromised devices, often part of a botnet network, are used to flood the victim’s server, website, network, or system with overwhelming traffic. It works by depleting the system’s essential resources, such as bandwidth, memory, RAM, or CPU. Resulting in the server becoming slow, unresponsive, or crashing abruptly. 

To carry out such an attack, cyberattackers create a botnet network by compromising smart devices—including smartphones, computers, smart TVs, smart fridges, or anything that go with the smart tag—and then using those devices to send fake traffic to the victim’s network.

WordPress is vulnerable to such attacks. To ensure your WordPress is not a part of such an attack, look for these signs:

• Your site is slow all of a sudden. If your WordPress is working slower than usual without you doing anything that may impact the performance, it can be a sign to dive deeper. 
• Increased bandwidth or server usage. Check out your CPU or browser usage; if you find unexplainable CPU usage, that could be a sign of a DDoS attack.
• Site completely shut down. If it’s not server downtime and the site is inaccessible, that can be a DDoS attack.

How To Mitigate and Prevent a DDoS Attack

Firstly, choosing a hosting provider that offers DDoS protection, such as Cloudflare, Liquid Web, A2 Hosting, Interserver, IONOS, Kinsta, Amazon Web Services, or others, offers enhanced protection from such attacks. Here’s what else you can do:

• Implement load balancing. Set up multiple WordPress instances and use a load balancer to help distribute traffic, which can significantly help with distributing fake DDoS traffic in an attempt.
• Implement a content delivery network. CDN also helps distribute traffic across multiple servers, reducing the burden on the origin server and preventing it from being overwhelmed.
• Install a firewall. Install a robust firewall that can help filter traffic.
• Monitor traffic spikes. Monitor unexplainable traffic spikes coming from illegitimate websites. 
• Use rate limiting. It is a security measure that limits the number of requests a client can make to a server within a specified period of time.

#4: Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

An XSS attack occurs when a hacker embeds harmful JavaScript into a trusted legitimate website. This malicious code is then executed when the visitor interacts with the website, such as filling out a form, without the user’s information.

These attacks occur sneakily, and most of the time, both the site owner and the victim or user are unaware of the tragedy. Hence making the attack so impactful.   

For example, the attacker may post an ill JavaScript for stealing cookies. Given that the owner of the site is mostly unaware, these malicious scripts may reside there for a very long time, stealing the cookies of each visitor.

It is a deadly and multipurpose attack that can do multiple damages, such as:

• Steal cookies/session tokens.
• Modify how a site looks or behaves
• Show fake login forms 
• Redirect users to malicious sites
• Spread malware 
• Keylog user input (the practice of spying on user’s keystrokes to extract passwords)

How To Prevent XSS Attacks?

Here’s what you can do to prevent such attacks:

• Stay updated. Keep an eye on any reported vulnerabilities and make it a habit to regularly update all your plugins, themes, and the WordPress core. 
• Implement Content Security Policy (CSP). CSP is a security mechanism that allows web developers to control which resources (like scripts, images, and styles) a browser can load for a specific website, which helps tremendously against such attacks.
• Install a firewall. A robust firewall from a reputable company would be helpful.
• Use secure frameworks. They provide mechanisms such as output encoding and templating engines that assist in sanitizing user input and preventing malicious code from being injected into web pages.

#5: SQL Injection

Coming up next, we have SQL injection. Short for Structured Query Language, often abbreviated as SQLi. This, another fairly common WordPress attack, targets insecure input boxes. The bad actor injects malicious scripts through such fields, and the code is executed in the database. 

This practice can allow hackers to manipulate the database and cause crucial damage to the reputation and infrastructure of the WordPress site and lead to harmful consequences, such as unauthorized access, data theft, or even complete deletion of critical information.

Moreover, these malicious scripts can even allow cyberattackers to bypass login screens and other authentication layers, enabling bad actors to enter a WordPress site as an admin. 

Although this attack can cause several kinds of damage to the site, it is often used to steal sensitive information. In 2008, a breach caused by a similar attack stole 130M credit card numbers, costing billions financially. 

The following signs can be prominent indicators of an SQL injection attack:

• Change in database. Given that the code interferes with the database, it is imperative to take safety measures if you see an unexplainable change.
• New users. Keep a sharp eye on new user accounts. 
• Suspicious queries. If your server log is filled with unexplainable suspicious queries, you might be in trouble.

How To Prevent an SQL Injection Attack?

Since SQLi is difficult to catch, it’s better to use advanced tools to detect and block attempts. Many of the latest tools can monitor unusual patterns in the database queries, notifying of such attacks before the impact is severe. Apart from that, you should:

• Keep your software updated. Attackers find vulnerabilities in outdated software and exploit those to gain unauthorized access. Updating your software prevents such complications.
• Restrict SQL database. Restrict your SQL database access based on roles and permissions. 
• Use the least privilege principle. Assign users minimal privileges needed to limit breach impact.
• Avoid nulled plugins and themes. These plugins often come with malicious codes injected. Once installed, the code can spread, causing problems.

#6: Directory Traversal Attacks

Directory traversal, also known as path traversal or directory climbing, is not directly a WordPress vulnerability but is a cyberattack often found in poorly coded plugins or themes. Since every WordPress website can’t function without external themes and plugins, adding it here would be a good choice.

This usually happens when a theme or plugin accepts user input to load files like images or templates but doesn’t validate or sanitize that input. Instead of staying within the expected directory, a malicious user can craft input that navigates up the folder structure and accesses restricted files.

What makes this dangerous is the kind of data attackers might get their hands on. If they manage to reach core WordPress files such as wp-config.php, they can steal database credentials, encryption keys, or other private information. 

How To Prevent Directory Traversal Attacks?

The best thing you can do for your security is to be vigilant of the file paths you allow on your WordPress site. Strictly control any file path, and avoid being on the user’s input to load or display files. If it is necessary and is serving the purpose, load or display it; otherwise, omit it.  

Developers should always sanitize and validate inputs and restrict file access to specific, predefined directories. 

Moreover, timely conduct plugin and themes audits and security scans to identify any component that could be exploited to gain unauthorized access or cause other crucial problems.

#7: Spam Link Injection Attacks

As the name suggests, spam link injection is the practice of injecting malicious code in your website’s code. Unlike other attacks in the list, the purpose behind these attacks is not to steal sensitive information but to benefit from your WordPress site’s search engine rankings.

These malicious codes often lead to unrelated websites and stores. These attacks help hackers boost search engine rankings of their illegitimate websites by:

1. They gain a new backlink.
2. Visitors can go to their website if they click on the spot where the spam link is injected.

This practice is highly detrimental to your search engine rankings and can even lead to penalties. Therefore, getting rid of such links as soon as possible is imperative.

It is challenging to spot such links because with advancements in cybersecurity, cyberattackers are getting better and smarter every day. 

The best way to catch such attacks is to monitor your analytics or search console and look for the keywords you are ranking for. If you find spam keywords that have nothing to do with your website, that surely means you have been attacked by a link injection attack.

How To Find And Eliminate Spam Links And Prevent Such Attacks

Due to the advancements in the cybersecurity world, it is necessary to use the correct tools and methods. There are three ways to get rid of spam links:

1. Use a reputable malware cleaner. You can use a WordPress plugin like MalCare. A comprehensive plugin that can easily detect the malware and help you remove it within a few clicks. 
2. Remove malware manually. You can also eliminate malware manually, although we advise looking up the consequences first, as you can lose your site. Also, malware is often confined in web files, making it very hard to spot.
3. Get WordPress support. As a last resort, you can also get help from WordPress support; they can help you with the removal process. 

For prevention:

• Avoid nulled themes and plugins. Remember the vulnerabilities part! Don’t ever use such things in a serious business.
• Regularly change credentials. Changing all passwords, such as access passwords, database passwords, etc., can help enhance security.
• Stay updated. On plugins, themes, and WordPress core.

Keep Safe and Secure from the Most Common WordPress Attacks

No matter how strong your website security is, there is always a chance for a cyberattack. However, you can significantly decrease the chances by being the best cybersecurity practices shared throughout the article.

Along with that, staying on the top of the industry can also help. Learn about the latest hacks, trends, news, case studies, and everything that can help you understand the world of cyberattacks and how hackers can target you.

However, it is a must to note that login security comes before anything. As the easiest way to access a website, it’s imperative to protect it like your life depends on it. For that reason, we have All-in-One Login. The plugin provides the cleanest features to safeguard your login page from all of the threats.

Frequently Asked Questions