I have had two WordPress blogs hacked into in the past. That was at a time when I was doing very little internet marketing, and until I found time to address the situation (months later), these sites were penalised in the search engines. They were not removed, but the rankings were reduced.
The rename your login url to secure your wordpress website Codex has an outline of what permissions are okay. File and directory permissions can be changed through an FTP client or within the page from your web host.
Don't depend on your internet host - Many people rely on their web host to"do all that technical stuff for me", not realizing that sometimesthey don't! Far better to have the responsibility lie with you, rather than out of your control.
Move your wp-config.php file one directory up from the WordPress root. WordPress will visit this website look for it if it cannot be found in the root directory. Additionally, nobody will be able to read the file unless they've FTP or SSH access.
Another step to take to make WordPress more secure is to always upgrade WordPress to the latest version. The main reason behind this is that there also come fixes for security holes making it home essential to update early.
Bear in mind the safety of your blogs depend on how you handle them. Be certain that you follow these strategies that are basic to prevent hacks and exploits on your blogs and websites.