Title: Spam link insertion hack
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# Spam link insertion hack

 *  [Miha Petelin](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mipe/)
 * (@mipe)
 * [15 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spam-link-insertion-hack/)
 * Hello,
 * I run a few blogs and some of them have been compromised by hackers. I discovered
   foreign links within my articles as well as the sidebar, typically cialis and
   pill links.
 * I already have removed those foreign links and changed passwords (mysql, cpanel
   etc.), however I cannot help but wonder how did they get through. From what I’ve
   observed, they haven’t actually gained access to WordPress; they altered the 
   database directly. Template and WordPress files were left unchanged. In some 
   cases, links were inserted into <img> tags, thus breaking them, which leads me
   to believe that links were inserted into post_content data randomly.
 * I have searched, however I am not sure what search terms to use; most results
   are ambigious.
 * I would appreciate advice on how to protect my blogs from these attacks; or at
   least proper search terms that I can use.
 * Thank you,
    M.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [Samuel B](https://wordpress.org/support/users/samboll/)
 * (@samboll)
 * [15 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spam-link-insertion-hack/#post-1916679)
 * [http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com/2008/06/24/how-to-completely-clean-your-hacked-wordpress-installation/](http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com/2008/06/24/how-to-completely-clean-your-hacked-wordpress-installation/)
 * [http://ottopress.com/2009/hacked-wordpress-backdoors/](http://ottopress.com/2009/hacked-wordpress-backdoors/)
 * [http://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_My_site_was_hacked](http://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_My_site_was_hacked)
 * [http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress](http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress)
 *  Thread Starter [Miha Petelin](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mipe/)
 * (@mipe)
 * [15 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spam-link-insertion-hack/#post-1916686)
 * Looks like there was an obfuscated backdoor in the database after all. I’ll have
   to ramp the security up a bit more after dealing with those backdoors. Thanks!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Spam link insertion hack’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Miha Petelin](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mipe/)
 * Last activity: [15 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spam-link-insertion-hack/#post-1916686)
 * Status: not resolved

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