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How to Hack a WordPress Website

May 18, 2023 By WP Helpline Off

You wake up one day and decide to hack your WordPress website. How
should you start? What tools should you use?

This is one of the most common questions I get from
WordPress website owners. After all, hacking a WordPress website means
accessing and controlling another person’s database. That is pretty
powerful. So, in this article, I will explain the easiest and most
professional way to hack a WordPress website. I will cover the
basics of database hacking, as well as, give you some bonus tips on
using WP ToolKit Plus to make your hacking experience
slightly easier.

The Basics Of Database Hacking

At its most basic level, database hacking means using tools to
control and access another person’s database. For example, if I have
a WordPress database called ‘demotest’, I could use the following
tools to perform basic tasks on it:

  • The MySQL client- My SQL Client is the basic tool every
    hacker needs to start with. It allows you to perform all sorts of
    tasks on a MySQL (a widely used open-source database) server. In this
    case, I would use the My SQL Client to create a new user account and
    new database on the server. A good starting point for learning more
    is this
    introduction to My SQL    .
  • PhpMyAdmin- PhpMyAdmin is a free
    and open-source tool that allows you to control and monitor your
    WordPress database through a web-based interface. If you are
    experienced with basic HTML and CSS, using PhpMyAdmin will be a
    breeze. For example, I could use PhpMyAdmin to change the
    theme-color of my demo website. If you’ve been meaning to try out a
    new theme but don’t know where to start, using PhpMyAdmin is a
    perfect way to try it out without having to install any plugins.
  • WP
    ToolKit Plus- This is the tool I use and recommend to all my
    WordPress website customers. It is a free and open-source tool that
    addresses all the basic needs of a beginner or intermediate
    WordPress hacker. As the name suggests, WP ToolKit Plus provides you
    with all the tools you need (including My SQL Client, PhpMyAdmin and
    more) in one place so you can focus on hacking.
  • A PHP
    debugger- A PHP debugger is a very useful debugging tool that
    displays a stack trace when a program throws a
    ‘SIGSEGV’ exception. This exception is raised when a
    program tries to access a piece of memory that it is not allowed to
    access. In this case, I would use it to identify the line of code
    that is causing the exception to be thrown. If I had set a limit to
    the number of database queries my website can make, using a PHP
    debugger would help me find out where I had exceeded that limit. Once
    I knew where that line of code was, I could either find a way to fix
    it or find another line of code that is not as limiting.

Bonus Tips: Using My SQL Client To Perform Tasks Faster

The My SQL Client allows you to perform many tasks much faster
than simply using the SQL command line. For example, if I want to
create a new user account called ‘John Smith’ on my demo
website, I would use the following SQL query (note: SQL is case
sensitive):

CREATE USER 'john smith'@localhost;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON 'mydb'.* TO 'john smith'';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

This SQL query creates a new user called ‘John Smith’ with
all the privileges on my demo database (assuming of course that my
demo database has a’mydb’ table). Instead of going through all the
steps and copy/pasting the above SQL query every time I want to
create a new user, I can use the My SQL Client to do it once and
then simply connect to the database as needed. In this way, I can get
the job done faster and more efficiently. This makes database
hacking much easier and more fun (at least for me!).

Using The Wrong Tools Can Harm Your Experience

It is important to use the right tools for the right job. A
WordPress hacker who uses the wrong tools can do more harm than good.
For example, if you are used to using a SQL command line, you should
not try and use the My SQL Client to perform certain tasks. It will
take you much longer to learn the differences in how each tool works
than it would to just use the right tool for the job. In most cases,
we are not aware of how much damage we are doing while performing
these tasks. It is only when we are trying to diagnose the issue
later that we become aware of how much work we had to do just to
figure out what was wrong with our site.

If you are new to MySQL or SQL, start by using the My SQL
Client. Once you know how it works, you can move on to other tools.
Doing things the wrong way is never fun. Learning how to use the
right tool for the job is key to becoming a successful hacker.

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