Title: TRAFFIC THEFT
Last modified: January 21, 2018

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# TRAFFIC THEFT

 *  Resolved [outcold](https://wordpress.org/support/users/outcold/)
 * (@outcold)
 * [8 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/traffic-theft/)
 * Yesterday I went to show a friend my site and each time I clicked on the letter“
   V” in the A-Z Listing widget I was redirected away from my site to an affiliate
   link. This is beyond unscrupulous! I have reported this plugin to WordPress. 
   Hopefully it will be shut down.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Dani Llewellyn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/diddledani/)
 * (@diddledani)
 * [8 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/traffic-theft/#post-9889971)
 * This is not due to my plugin. The forum moderators and the plugins team have 
   both confirmed that this is not caused by the A-Z Listing plugin. It is likely
   that your site has been hacked via another route.
 *  Plugin Author [Dani Llewellyn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/diddledani/)
 * (@diddledani)
 * [8 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/traffic-theft/#post-9898317)
 * You can find help for a hacked site at [https://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_My_site_was_hacked](https://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_My_site_was_hacked)
 *  Thread Starter [outcold](https://wordpress.org/support/users/outcold/)
 * (@outcold)
 * [8 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/traffic-theft/#post-9898360)
 * My most sincere apologies. It turns out a hacker had attached malware to this
   plugin making it appear that the plugin was at fault. In my anger at discovering
   this I jumped to the erroneous conclusion that the plugin was at fault. Re-installing
   the plugin immediately resolved this issue, but of course I then discovered malware
   elsewhere on the site and on the server. I’ve spent the last 3 days attempting
   to rid myself of it. Thank you of this great plugin. I once again apologize for
   this thread. I wish there was a way to modify or delete it.
 *  Plugin Author [Dani Llewellyn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/diddledani/)
 * (@diddledani)
 * [8 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/traffic-theft/#post-9898397)
 * Don’t worry about it. Mistakes happen. I’m glad that my plugin hadn’t caused 
   your site to be hacked. I was concerned that I had a vulnerability which you 
   were highlighting. If that were the case I would work tirelessly to fix for everyone.
   I hope you can get your site cleaned up, and that it isn’t too painful a process.
   Fixing a hacked site is a painful task and I don’t wish the job on anyone. Good
   luck.
 * If there’s ever anything I can help with in the future, please come back and 
   ask away 🙂
 *  Thread Starter [outcold](https://wordpress.org/support/users/outcold/)
 * (@outcold)
 * [8 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/traffic-theft/#post-9898485)
 * Thanks for understanding. The other error I made was overwriting the plugin and
   not keeping a copy of the hacked version, which might have shed some light on
   exactly what they’d done to it. I’ve since discovered other malware in other 
   parts of my WP install, so it wasn’t just your plugin. I think I’ve removed all
   of it now, but I still don’t know how they got in in the first place which makes
   leaves me not knowing if they’ll come back and do this all over again.
 * Thanks again.
 *  Plugin Author [Dani Llewellyn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/diddledani/)
 * (@diddledani)
 * [8 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/traffic-theft/#post-9899945)
 * If you can, make a complete backup of your site in case the next steps go awry,
   and then:
    1.  Download the wp-content/uploads folder to your local PC – check there are no
        PHP scripts inside that folder once you have it. If there are any PHP files
        delete them unless you specifically know about them and why they’re there
    2.  Make a list of all the plugins you have on your site and download them from
        their original sources (updating if you can to the latest versions released)
    3.  If your theme is not customised or home-made try to download the latest version
        from the original source – If you’ve customised it then make sure you can duplicate
        the customisations in the newly downloaded theme
    4.  Save wp-config.php to your home PC and check to make sure there are no nasty
        injected things inside it – compare with a clean version and try to make a 
        judgement as to whether the differences are each required for your site – this
        file tells WordPress how to connect to your database and some other configurations
        via `define()` calls and ends in a `require()` to load WordPress itself
    5.  Now delete all the files on your site (this is the scary part) and upload a
        new WordPress extracted from the zip file you can download from WordPress.org
    6.  Upload your new copies of all the plugins
    7.  Upload your new copy of your theme with any customisations re-applied
    8.  Upload your wp-content/uploads folder once you’ve removed the PHP files within–
        see above
    9.  Upload your wp-config.php file once you’ve verified there are no backdoors 
        inside
    10. If all went well your site should be operational again. If not, delete all 
        the files and restore from the backup you made before you started these steps
        and you’ll be where you started – see the very first statement 🙂 – The database
        should still be OK so you don’t necessarily need to restore that too

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

The topic ‘TRAFFIC THEFT’ is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://s.w.org/plugins/geopattern-icon/a-z-listing_d8edfd.svg)
 * [A-Z Listing](https://wordpress.org/plugins/a-z-listing/)
 * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/a-z-listing/#faq)
 * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/a-z-listing/)
 * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/a-z-listing/active/)
 * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/a-z-listing/unresolved/)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/a-z-listing/reviews/)

 * 6 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Dani Llewellyn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/diddledani/)
 * Last activity: [8 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/traffic-theft/#post-9899945)
 * Status: resolved