Introduction
A couple of months ago, one of my clients messaged me in a panic. His WordPress site was acting weird, and worse, his admin email had been hacked. As someone who works closely with WordPress every day, I took this seriously. While helping him fix this mess, I discovered something pretty alarming—hackers have tons of sneaky ways to steal WordPress admin emails, and most website owners have no idea they’re even at risk.
In fact, Wordfence, one of the biggest WordPress security companies, reported blocking over 100 billion login attacks last year alone. Hackers often target emails, usernames, and passwords to break into sites. Another report showed plugins cause about 92% of security issues on WordPress sites—putting admin emails at risk too.
In this post, I’ll show you exactly how hackers get your WordPress admin email, how I recovered my client’s website, and some easy ways to protect yourself.
Let’s dive in.
Why Hackers Even Want Your Admin Email
Before we talk about how hackers steal your admin email, it’s good to know why they bother doing it in the first place:
- Taking over your site: Once hackers have your admin email, they can reset your password and lock you out.
- Sending fake emails (phishing): Hackers trick your users by pretending to be you.
- Spamming others: They use your email address to send spam, ruining your site’s reputation.
- Tricking people (social engineering): Emails make it easier for hackers to fool your team or clients into giving away even more info.
- Also, many people use their email address as their username, which is a serious security risk. Hackers can simply enter the email as the username and try to guess the password.
How My Client’s Email Got Hacked
One morning, my client called me—he couldn’t log into his WordPress dashboard. When he tried resetting his password, he saw emails were going somewhere else—not to him. Clearly, his admin email had been stolen.
It took some digging, but I found out how the hacker got in. While I managed to get control back, the whole thing was an eye-opener. Here’s exactly what I learned about how hackers get WordPress admin emails—and how you can stop them. A truly scary story right.
8 Sneaky Ways Hackers Steal Your WordPress Admin Email (and How to Stop Them)
1. Checking Your Author URLs
Hackers type links like yoursite.com/?author=1 to find usernames, making it easier to guess your admin email.
- Tip: Turn off author archives or redirect these links to your homepage or what I do is redirect these links to about page.
2. Using the REST API
WordPress’s REST API sometimes shows usernames and emails openly.
- Tip: Block public access to the REST API if you don’t need it.
- (Suggest adding a screenshot here to show how this looks.)
3. Pulling Emails from Comments and Gravatars
If you comment using your admin email, Gravatar can reveal hashed emails. Hackers reverse these hashes to get your real email.
- Tip: Avoid commenting with your admin account.
- (Suggest an infographic explaining Gravatar hashes.)
4. Reading Your Login Error Messages
WordPress default login errors can show hackers whether an email is real or not.
- Tip: Use a plugin to make your login errors generic.
- (Suggest adding a screenshot showing a default login error.)
5. Misusing XML-RPC
WordPress’s XML-RPC can be abused to hack into your site by guessing emails and passwords.
- Tip: Disable XML-RPC if your site doesn’t use it.
6. Looking in Your Source Code
Sometimes themes or plugins accidentally show admin emails in your site’s code.
- Tip: Double-check your site’s code regularly.
7. SQL Injection Attacks
Old or unsafe plugins can let hackers directly grab your emails from your database.
- Tip: Always keep your plugins updated.
8. Browsing Unsecured Directories
Bad server setups can reveal private files or folders, including admin emails.
- Tip: Disable directory browsing on your hosting.
How I Got My Client’s Site Back
Here’s what I did to fix my client’s hacked email problem:
- Logged into his hosting account and changed the admin email through the database.
- Reset passwords and set up reliable security plugins.
- Blocked public REST API access.
- Secured the hosting setup to stop XML-RPC abuse.
- Explained basic security practices so it wouldn’t happen again.
This stressful experience taught me just how important basic security steps really are.
Easy Ways to Protect Your WordPress Admin Email
To avoid all the trouble we faced, here’s what you should do right now:
- Disable author archives.
- Restrict REST API access to logged-in users.
- Set strong passwords and use two-factor authentication.
- Customize login error messages.
- Never show your admin email directly on your site.
- Regularly check your logs for unusual activity.
- Always have recent backups.
FAQs
Yes, they can use methods like checking REST API or Gravatars.
Usually yes—but only allow logged-in users to access sensitive data.
They help a lot but can’t guarantee 100% safety by themselves.
Use secure contact forms instead of directly listing your email.
Not completely—it helps stop brute-force attacks, but hackers can still use other methods to find your email.
Conclusion
Understanding how hackers get your WordPress admin email is crucial. My client learned this the hard way, and now we take security seriously from day one.
Don’t wait until your email gets hacked. Start protecting your website today. If you found this helpful, please share it, leave a comment with your experience, or reach out directly—I’m always here if you need help keeping your WordPress site secure.