How to Secure Your WordPress Comments Section

Running a WordPress website is very challenging. Hackers are always seeking ways to exploit websites and add malicious code.

One of the easiest ways for hackers to exploit a website is to inject malicious code into your site using comments.

In fact, hackers use automated scripts to scan for WordPress websites that allow commenting. These scripts then automatically write comments onto your site. If left unchecked, hackers can spam your site with hundreds of comments each day!

Often, these comments contain links to products or services. Hackers are paid for the amount of clicks these links receive. Often, these products or services are sexually oriented, which is not something most people want to find on their website!

Most hackers are motivated by the money they receive from link clicks on their spam comments. WordPress hackers are often found in low income countries and rely on spam comments for a source of income. So, they are not just hacking your site for personal enjoyment, they are doing it to make a living. This means these hackers are highly motivated to post spam comments.

To compound this threat, spamming can be so profitable that entire companies are developed with the intent to distribute spam or hack WordPress sites. These companies use spamming scripts that are widely available through the internet.

Hackers can also use comments to inject malicious code onto your site which can compromise your WordPress installation. SQL injection attacks use comments to compromise your WordPress database. Hackers might use this technique to steal or erase your users credentials.

These types of attacks are more common for larger companies and less common for small businesses. Hackers would profit from an SQL injection attack by stealing user credentials, so it makes sense to target an organization that has more credentials to steal in the first place.

With the proper settings you can make it much more difficult for hackers to compromise your WordPress Site. Check out this video with our tips on WordPress comment security.

This video is part of our WordPress Security Course, coming soon!