So I just put up a website like a week ago, I checked the checkbox to not be indexed by search engines. And I started working on my site, uploading a theme, installing the the plugins I wanted.
I have to admit, the first day I worked on it I had a weak password, maybe 9 characters, but the second day I changed to some 20 character password.
Anyway, after exactly one week, I suddenly receive an email from my website to my private personal email address with a suspicious link that I didn’t click (an email from the hacker/spoofer), I then checked the raw email and see it passed SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. And futhermore, in the raw email it showed that the route of the email came from an SMTP mail plugin on my site. Yes, I did install that plugin though.
The email address that the email message I received was sent by my sending email address that I had put in that email plugin. And the email address I received the email to was my personal email that I had put in the website to test that the outgoing emails work.
The SMTP mail plugin is one of the top rated ones, so I didn’t think it could be hacked. But things happen and that’s fine, that’s not why I’m freaking out.
I’m freaking out because I don’t get though is how hackers could even find my little rinky dink WordPress little website that’s only been up for one week in the first place?
Like, seriously? I had just put the thing up, I had zero traffic, how did this happen?
I checked the checkbox to not be searchable by search engines (I know I already mentioned this), and I think I only had 2 WordPress pages up. How could anyone even find my site?
I told no one I was putting up a website, so it’s just unreal to me that it could even be found in the first place.
And so what I also wonder now is, how can I prevent this from happening again? How do hackers find new websites? And how can I hide future sites from being seen on the Internet?
The answers to these questions have been driving me insane, and I’ve become super-paranoid as a result. Any theories or explanations are welcome. I’m sure there is some way hackers find new sites, but I’d really like to know what those are so I know what to avoid next time, and more so, so I can feel at ease.
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