Title: possible hack;  need  help upgrading
Last modified: August 19, 2016

---

# possible hack; need help upgrading

 *  Resolved [zwave](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zwave/)
 * (@zwave)
 * [16 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-hack-need-help-upgrading/)
 * Hi,
 * First of all – i use version 2.3.3. I know, i should have upgraded million years
   ago, i’m a bad person and i should be ashamed.
    Beside that, after i read [this](http://wordpress.org/development/2009/09/keep-wordpress-secure/)
   article that talks about a warm that registers a user, than makes itself an admin–
   I checked my blog and saw that on “write post” tab, on the “post author” dropdown,
   that a user called KentWeiss72 was available, besides me. This was odd and I 
   checked the “users” tab to see if I can delete it from there but i couldn’t find
   it. So I assumed that I got hacked, just the way the [article](http://wordpress.org/development/2009/09/keep-wordpress-secure/)
   said.
 * now my question is: **what can I do to clean my site ? **
    I have a main site
   that acts as an online shop and a wordpress blog associated with it. I don’t 
   know if the hacker messed up with my online shop or only with the blog.. i don’t
   really know what’s the extent of the damage because I don’t know what to check…
   I’m kinda’ lost even if I’m “administrator”. Usually, I go by intuition, more
   than solid knowledge. Let me tell you what I’ve done so far:
 * 1. I opened phpmyadmin from cpanel and deleted suspect users, including KentWeiss72
   which had admin rights from the database : **wp_users** and **wp_usermeta ** 
   tables
    2. i started updating to 2.8.4. I followed the steps from [this](http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended)
   article and got to step 7. I stopped to ask somebody on these forums if I’m doing
   it right.
 * Thank you !
    p.s. i remember a few months ago I had a problem with some alien
   code that got into all my index files and contained an <iframe> which made I 
   don’t know what, but avira restricted access to my site. Back then I deleted 
   the foreign code from all index files and it worked, but I didn’t knew what else
   to check..

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

 *  Thread Starter [zwave](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zwave/)
 * (@zwave)
 * [16 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-hack-need-help-upgrading/#post-1242540)
 * and it’s not warm it’s worm sorry! :d maybe a warm worm 🙂
 *  [jonimueller](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jonimueller/)
 * (@jonimueller)
 * [16 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-hack-need-help-upgrading/#post-1242541)
 * That’s just the procedure for upgrading WordPress. You have to proceed a bit 
   differently if you’ve been hacked, especially with that latest added admin user
   hack. You’ll need to clean your database. Read about that here:
    [http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/old-wordpress-versions-under-attack/](http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/old-wordpress-versions-under-attack/)
 *  Thread Starter [zwave](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zwave/)
 * (@zwave)
 * [16 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-hack-need-help-upgrading/#post-1242562)
 * my .htaccess file looks like this:
 * # BEGIN WordPress
 * # END WordPress
 * is it normal ?
 *  Thread Starter [zwave](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zwave/)
 * (@zwave)
 * [16 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-hack-need-help-upgrading/#post-1242581)
 * after i studied several articles, i decided to go through with steps from [here](http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended#Step_10:_Update_Permalinks_and_.htaccess),
   as they seem more just..
 *  Thread Starter [zwave](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zwave/)
 * (@zwave)
 * [16 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-hack-need-help-upgrading/#post-1242582)
 * if i delete .htaccess, it will create itself ?
 *  [iridiax](https://wordpress.org/support/users/iridiax/)
 * (@iridiax)
 * [16 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-hack-need-help-upgrading/#post-1242584)
 * > if i delete .htaccess, it will create itself ?
 * Yes, it should when you set your pretty permalinks, but if it doesn’t, see: [http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks#Creating_and_editing_.28.htaccess.29](http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks#Creating_and_editing_.28.htaccess.29)
 *  Thread Starter [zwave](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zwave/)
 * (@zwave)
 * [16 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-hack-need-help-upgrading/#post-1242588)
 * and how exactly will you set the pretty permalinks ? sorry but i’m to tired to
   read through the hole article. i already staid up all night learning about this
   update and being careful not to mess something up ..
 *  Thread Starter [zwave](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zwave/)
 * (@zwave)
 * [16 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-hack-need-help-upgrading/#post-1242592)
 * i uploaded new version and database. I deleted everything, then modified wp-config.
   php introducing the 4 keys and copied uploads folder into wp-content. I also 
   deleted the .htaccess file but that one wasn’t present in the new files of 2.8.4
   version
 * now i have one more question and i hit the sack !
    if i don’t set my pretty permalinks,
   do i need .htaccess ? if yes, can i use the old one – which as i stated above
   has only 2 lines.. or make a new one ? … please respond so i can finally sleep..
 *  [iridiax](https://wordpress.org/support/users/iridiax/)
 * (@iridiax)
 * [16 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-hack-need-help-upgrading/#post-1242593)
 * > if i don’t set my pretty permalinks, do i need .htaccess ?
 * No, you don’t need one then.
 *  Thread Starter [zwave](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zwave/)
 * (@zwave)
 * [16 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-hack-need-help-upgrading/#post-1242594)
 * thanks

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

The topic ‘possible hack; need help upgrading’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [outdated version](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/outdated-version/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 10 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [zwave](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zwave/)
 * Last activity: [16 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/possible-hack-need-help-upgrading/#post-1242594)
 * Status: resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics