Steps to take if your website is hacked
There are always two types of organizations, one which is hacked and those that don’t even know they have been hacked. But what to do if you have already been hacked?
In this article, we will tell you about ways to know if your website is hacked and what steps to take to get your site running again.
How do you know if your website is hacked?
There are several ways through which you can find whether your website is hacked or not. The most obvious reason is when the attacker has simply defaced your website. You might find that some new page replaces your web page, or when you try to open your website, you are redirected to another page.
However, the hackers mostly attempt to leave no traces so that the user doesn’t know that the website has been hacked. They always prefer that you didn’t know about it, as they want to access your website for as long as possible so that they can do their dirty work.
Below are some signs that signify that your website has been hacked:
- If your website is defaced.
- If your website is redirected to some “unsavory” site, such as pharmaceuticals or porn site.
- Bing or Google notifies that your website has been compromised.
- If your web browser shows that your website has been hacked.
- If you notice strange traffic on your web pages, especially from other countries.
How does it happen?
According to a survey, 63 percent of website owners don’t even know when they were hacked. If you find that your website has been hacked, it is essential to understand how all of this happened to avoid another attack by the same attacker.
There are several ways that a website can be hacked. Below are some common ways that attackers take to gain access to your site.
- By guessing your password.
- By using malware on your computer to capture the login credentials.
- By finding security vulnerability.
- By hacking another website on the same shared server, which you are using for your website.
Steps to clean your hacked website
There are some essential steps that you must take to clean your hacked website:
Call in your support team
If you don’t have any reliable technical staff in your workplace, the perfect option for you will be to call in a support team. The support team will include individuals with strong technical expertise and who are familiar with your website and its entire configuration.
Web designers that doesn’t have any technical or programming background might have a hard time fixing the problem. Experienced professionals have the necessary skills to locate and resolve the problem.
Several web hosting providers doesn’t perform actual work of fixing your website. But they can offer great assistance or might have some customers that are experiencing the same problem.
Gather all the information that your support team will require
You will need to gather all the necessary information for your support team. Your team or web developer will require access to:
- Backups: Any backups you might have created.
- FTP/sFTP access credentials: This should include username, password, and hostname.
- Hosting Login: Your web hosting control panel will need access to your weblogs and database.
- CMS Login: Your content management system will require super admin/administrative rights.
- Your Web Logs: They will require both the error logs and access logs. Make sure that your service provider provides you with the weblogs. Most of the companies offer, but some do not provide access to them.
Always store this essential information in a safe location, where you can access them quickly if there is any need.
Take your website offline.
You should shut your website down temporarily when it is being fixed or accessed. Your service provider’s control panel should have the ability to shut down your site temporarily. You might need a password to protect the primary directory, where it will block the visitors from opening the site when the support team is working on it.
Scan your local PC for malware and viruses
You must scan your PC with anti-virus software to ensure that your device is not infected with any type of spyware, Trojans, malware, etc.
Conclusion
Your support team must be fully experienced to diagnose if your website is hacked due to any reason. Read this article to know the steps that you must take to clean your hacked website.
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