Hackers are basically crooks that want to steal information from you, or manipulate your website to their advantage. They crack or hack the credentials of your site to obtain access to the backend where they are not supposed to be. Once there, depending on their motivation – anything is possible.
· Insert unwanted links to other sites onto your webpage
· Use your system to spread a political message
· Use your site as a host for all types of malware and to spread infection
· Gain knowledge of other sites or email login credentials
· Simply annoy and be an expensive nuisance
The best things that you can do to help avoid being hacked is to have a strong password. There are many applications out there that can create good strong random passwords. Another thing that really is a must do, is keep your WordPress up to date. Log into the back end of your site and ensure that all the updates are done.
Another great tool is to install a WordPress firewall plugin. Look in the WordPress plugin directory or google ‘WordPress firewall plugins.
Also, remove unused or unwanted plugins. Allowing unwanted plugins enabled or disabled to sit in your WordPress installation increases the chance of the site being compromised.