A lot of password resetting
If you run a WordPress website and host it on Hetzner you will have heard about their Konsoleh client portal being compromised by a Hack into their SQL database…Although noone seems entirely clear as to how this security breach can affect us, it would be wise to follow their instructions and reset your ftp passwords and your database passwords.
The ftp password is quite simple to update, but if you are running a WordPress website you will need to update the database password as well. Log into Konsoleh, navigate to > Manage Services > Databases > Manage MySQL. Select the database to edit and in the password field enter the new password. Its advisable to use a strong password generator . Keeping this password on hand log onto your ftp server and download the file usually found in public_html called wp-config.php . (Otherwise it is found in the core files of your wordpress folder)
In this file you will need to change the database password found in the following string of the file (‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password_changed_here’) to the password you have just updated in Konsoleh.
It’s fairly simple, save the file and re-upload it to the server where you fetched it from. Check your site, if you encounter an error such as ‘DATABASE ERROR ESTABLISHING CONNECTION’ this simply means the passwords were not set correctly or there was some error in copy pasting to the file you updated.
During the course of today whilst updating the passwords on all my clients sites this error occurred a few times. Although I was extremely careful, sometimes it just required that I deleted the old wp-config.php file and uploaded the new one, or in other instances just reset the password on the server.
I would like to emphasize that I have every confidence in Hetzner and this security breach has only benefited them in becoming even more secure.
If anyone requires my assistance, as this is a long and tedious process if you have many sites hosted on the Hetzner Server, don’t hesitate to call The First Step.
Good Luck!
