WordPress Sending Spam Emails? Detect and Fix the hack

wordpress

Have you discovered emails from your website that aren’t from you?

Worried about spamming your subscribers and clients?

If you’re experiencing these problems, it’s possible that your website has been compromised, and the consequences can be disastrous. Subscribers that you worked hard to acquire can unsubscribe and flag your email as spam quickly. Your website and email address will be blacklisted, and any emails you send will be filtered as spam.

Unfortunately, this is a fairly common occurrence. Don’t worry, we’ve helped a lot of our clients get through this. We’ll show you how to repair it correctly and quickly!

TL;DR (short version) –

You must first identify and patch the hack on your website in order to prevent WordPress from sending spam. Install MalCare on your website to have it scanned automatically. The plugin includes a sophisticated scanner that can detect any form of malware, even if it has been concealed or disguised by the hacker. After the infected files have been located, you can use the auto-clean function to remove the hack in under a minute.

Cautionary Steps For Hacked WordPress Sending Spam Emails

Emails are an essential part of keeping in touch with your clients. Customers could lose faith in your ability to protect their personal information, such as email addresses, if your email is hacked.

If your company has sent out spam emails, you must first perform damage control by taking these precautionary steps before attempting to locate and repair the hack.

1. Check all user accounts in your wp-admin panel. We recommend temporarily disabling all accounts until you’re confident none of them have been hacked. If you see an account that you don’t know, it’s possible that the hacker added it. You must uninstall it right away.

2. Communicate with your email recipients. If you’ve sent spam emails from your account, it’s your duty to apologise to your recipients, as humiliating as it might be.

Customers, employers, and business associates should receive a well-worded note instructing them to ignore all emails from you and to avoid falling victim to any malicious tactics hackers may employ. It’s best to apologise and assure them that you’re working hard to fix the problem as soon as possible.

3. If your company is large enough, you’ll need to train your employees, especially customer service, to handle incoming questions from customers.

4. Contact the customer service department of your email provider. They should be able to prevent any further spam from being sent out.

After that, you can patch your hacked website and stop the spam. We’ll walk you through the steps you’ll need to take next.

How To Fix Hacked WordPress Sending Spam Emails

It goes without saying that you must locate and correct the WordPress hack. Is that, however, sufficient? The response is, unfortunately, no. You must also determine why hackers were able to gain access to your site in the first place. As a result, we’ll show you how to:

Let’s get this party started.

Time is of the essence when it comes to repairing a compromised website. Using a WordPress protection plugin is the quickest and most powerful way to detect a hack.

Note: If you don’t want to use a plugin, you should try cleaning up your website manually. This guide has covered the manual approach. However, we do not suggest it because it is time consuming, labour intensive, and potentially dangerous. The manual method involves accessing your WordPress site’s files through File Manager in your web host account’s cPanel or an FTP client like FileZilla. Even the tiniest blunder will derail your site and worsen the situation.

We’ll show you how to use a plugin to quickly patch and clean your site in this guide.

1. Detect And Clean Hacked WordPress Site Sending Spam Email

Many plugins are available in the WordPress repository to assist you in repairing your hacked account. However, it’s still a good idea to do some testing to find the correct one. We’ve done the research and compiled a list of the best WordPress security plugins.

When selecting a protection plugin, keep the following in mind:

1. Malware is normally hidden or disguised on your web by hackers. Such malware should be detectable by the plugin. Select a plugin that scans the entire website, including all files and databases.

2. Examine the malware detection system employed. The majority of plugins depend on antiquated methods known as “pattern or signature matching” to detect only known malware. Any new malware that is produced is missed by these plugins. When your site is hacked, it may be labelled as ‘Clean.’

3. Some plugins take a long time to clean up after a hack. You must contact the customer service department, who will appoint someone to clean up your place. This could take some days. Choose a plugin that will help you clean up your site right away.

4. Finally, several plugins run scans and cleanups using the website’s resources. This will cause your site to load slowly. Plugins that run their processes on offsite servers are a safer option.

Both of these requirements are met by our MalCare protection plugin. Its smart scanner examines the actions of code on your website, allowing it to detect any form of malware, whether concealed, disguised, or new. It also thoroughly examines every inch of your website, leaving no stone unturned. It also has an auto-clean feature that cleans up your site in a matter of minutes.

After that, we’ll teach you how to use MalCare to locate and remove the malware.

You can use any plugin you want; the steps will be nearly identical.

A. Find the hack on your WordPress website

PRO TIP: We suggest that you make a backup of your website before proceeding. This will ensure that all of the data is copied and that no data is lost. If you want to instal MalCare, a backup operated by BlogVault will be taken for you automatically.

Step 1: Install MalCare on your site. Activate the plugin and go to your WordPress dashboard to use it.

Step 2: Pick Secure Site Now after entering your email address.

Step 3: MalCare will take you to its own dashboard, where it will conduct an automated search of your website. It will show a prompt like this when it detects infected files on your website:

B. Clean the hack on your WordPress website

Step 1: MalCare gives you the option to ‘Auto-Clean’ your site once the hack has been identified.

Simply press the button. In just a few minutes, MalCare will clean up your website automatically. When you’re done, you’ll see a message confirming that your site is clean.

That concludes our discussion. Your compromised WordPress account has been successfully cleaned up.

However, the task is just half completed. Now you must address the security flaws that enabled the hacker to gain access to your site. Then we’ll show you how to avoid potential attacks like this.

2. Remove Vulnerabilities On Your WordPress Website

We suggest the following steps based on the most popular points of entry used by hackers:

A. Update your WordPress core installation, themes and plugins

One of the most common explanations for WordPress site hacking is outdated tech.

Updates may be applied to add new functionality or to correct bugs and compatibility problems. They’re also released when security vulnerabilities in themes or plugins, as well as the WordPress installation itself, are discovered. It is fixed by developers, who provide security fixes in their updates.

The vulnerability is patched until the user upgrades their apps.

However, if a website owner lacks the update, hackers will have an easier time finding the flaw and breaking in.

Version 1.3.9 of the Easy WP SMTP Plugin had a flaw in March 2019. This security flaw could allow attackers to create a regular subscriber account with admin privileges secret. They could use it to take over websites and redirect compromised ones. The problem was solved, and v1.3.9.1 was published.

B. Delete any inactive and unused plugins and themes on your site

The more elements you have on your website, the more difficult it is to keep track of them. It’s easy to overlook updates or lose track of can plugins have been abandoned by their creator.

It’s best to remove any unnecessary plugins and themes, leaving only the ones you need. Also, search your site’s current theme and plugins for malicious code on a regular basis.

C. Delete any pirated software and vow to never use any again

Pirated software is appealing because it provides you with free access to premium features. Pirated plugins and themes, on the other hand, are often infected with malware. When you instal malware on your website, it infects it and helps hackers to gain access.

Using only the most up-to-date versions of plugins and themes. There are a tonne of free plugins available for WordPress! You’ll undoubtedly find one that meets your needs.

D. Remove any rogue users present on your wp-admin dashboard

As previously stated, when hackers break into your site, they sometimes create an admin user so that they can access it even after you clean it.

Check your wp-admin panel once more, and go through your website’s user list. If you come across any users you don’t know, remove them.

These steps will close the holes in your website’s security.

3. Stay Protected: How To Avoid Sending Email Spam In The Future?

It’s exhausting enough to go through this ordeal already! It’s something you don’t want to happen again. Aside from that, customers may be forgiving the first time, but the second time demonstrates that you are not concerned about protection.

Worse, if consumer data such as email addresses were leaked, you could face serious legal consequences. You must permanently protect your website.

You’re already safe if you used the MalCare plugin to clean your website. Here’s how to do it:

  • It instals a firewall that prevents malicious bots and IP addresses from accessing your website.
  • It checks the site for malware on a daily basis.
  • MalCare uses clear captchas before allowing users to log in, ensuring that no malicious bots gain access.
  • You can also set a cap on how many times you can log in.
  • It allows you to put website security measures in place. There are a few WordPress-recommended security measures that you should implement to make your site extremely difficult to hack into.
  • It also warns you if your website has any security flaws. You will resolve these problems directly from the MalCare dashboard.

These safeguards assist you in protecting your website and, as a result, make it difficult for hackers to gain access.

Hackers prefer places with a lack of protection. They’re easy to get into. They’ll move on until they see that your site has security measures in place.

PRO TIP: If you’re still having trouble connecting or receiving error messages with email delivery after cleaning your site of malware, consider using the WP Mail SMTP plugin. It will assist you in identifying the problem and correctly reconfiguring your server settings.

There are occasions when, through all of your safeguards and interventions, your emails end up in the spam folders of your recipients.

This is a normal occurrence after the website has been hacked. Next, we’ll show you how to repair it.

Are Your WordPress Emails Going Into Spam?

There are online spam monitoring systems that keep an eye on email servers. They blacklist your server IP address if they detect spam distribution or if users start marking your emails as spam.

If your server IP is included on these blacklists, your email will end up in the spam folder of the recipient, regardless of what security steps you take.

To see if your server’s IP is blacklisted, follow these steps:

Step 1: Determine the IP address of your server.

Go to your web hosting account and log in. Your server’s IP address should be shown here.

If you can’t find it, contact customer service and make a case.

Step 2: Use tools to detect email blacklisting

In your browser, enter your IP address and search for blacklists using any of the following free online tools:

  • What is my ipaddress
  • Mx Toolbox
  • What is my IP

Step 3: Request for blacklist removal

If your site appears on a blacklist, you must contact the online service and request that it be removed from the blacklist.

On certain providers’ websites, you can also delete yourself from the blacklist. If it is flagged again, however, it will not be removed the second time. You can double-check that you’ve met all of the specifications and that your site is clean and safe.

Take a screenshot of your website status showing ‘Clean’ on the MalCare dashboard to make the process simpler. This will act as proof that your website is free of malware.

Depending on the severity of the spam and the spam detection service, this phase will take anything from a few hours to a few weeks.

That concludes our discussion of how to stop WordPress from sending spam emails. Your WordPress account should now be malware-free and blacklisted-free.

Last Thoughts

Spam email is a major global issue. It is not taken lightly by subscribers, customers, email providers, or spam detection services. It demonstrates that you aren’t concerned about protection.

Here’s what we recommend to prevent this dilemma in the future:

  • Make the protection of your website a top priority.
  • Protect your website with a reputable security plugin like MalCare.
  • Take website hardening steps to keep your site safe and secure from hackers.