Generally, people think that hackers only attack new and weak websites but it not true their main attraction is old stablish and popular websites.
let’s first see how to identify the signs of a hacked site after it we look at what you should do if your site gets infiltrated.
Most incidents of hacking occur as a result of data breaches, where hackers are able to access the sensitive website or company information, such as passwords and usernames. Cybercriminals can gain entry through individuals or through software systems.
Indicators that your website is hacked
- If you cant login to your website.
- If suddenly the site traffic rate goes down.
- If unwanted bad links appearing on the website, especially on the footer
- If your site’s homepage is malformed.
- If suspicious or unsolicited user accounts appear which may also hijack the admin role.
- If your website gets slower than normal then normal speed.
- If unknown scrips and code running on your server.
- If you will face difficulties in send and receive emails.
- If you will see unwanted scheduled tasks.
- If Suspicious add appears in the popup.
If you will face any of the signs above, it means your website is hacked. It is easy to feel helpless, desperate and frustrated at this point, but you can remain calm and fix the problem.
You can try the bellow things to get over the hack.
Contact your hosting company
Generally, good hosting companies are helpful in such situations. Such has been released in the past with tech-savvy and experienced staff, and so they can help you quickly.
If your site is on a shared server then it is possible that the hacker can use another website on the server to access your site. In this case, the hosting company can help you with how the hacking started and spread. They can also tell you where your site’s weakness is.
To make sure your site is secure, and to ensure that your site has hacked then dont worry you have a supportive hosting team and they will help you.
If you’re not sure which hosting is good because they all offer different options at different costs, then our post will be helpful for you on the best WordPress hosting.
Hire a professional
If your site is hacked, you need to clean it up quickly and you dont know how to do that then you should consider contacting a professional for help. An infected site usually deteriorates as time progresses, which is why you should seek help from an expert to fix the problem and make the website secure.
Restore the site’s previous version
If you’re diligent about storing backups of your WordPress website (We highly recommend a backup of your site and store it on any vault services), you’ve had a chance to restore it. If you store site backups and suddenly got hacked then dont worry just use your backup and restore the site on the last version.
When restoring old backups always keep in mind that the entire site will revert to the last version. This means you will lose your earlier changes that you have made in the site like new images and gallery and post. However, an old and clean website is better than a hacked one.
After successfully restoring an older version of your site, remember that your site is not hack-proof yet. Therefore, you should move fast to add a layer of security and escalate potential malicious activity and common cybersecurity threats.
Check your site’s user permissions
You need to log into your website’s dashboard and you should check that all WordPress user’s permissions. Confirm that only you and your team can access the administrator accounts and no other one can interfere with your site. If you will find any suspicious user then immediately delete it.
If you want to monitor user access and behavior on your website, we have recently written about the WordPress Security Audit Log plugin and how it can improve user accountability on your WordPress site.
Change all passwords associated with your website
Make sure that you have changed all passwords that you used to access cPanel, WordPress dashboard, FTP client, MySQL database, and any others that you can give to an outsider on the website.
If you have changed passwords with new and secure words that will give headaches to some of the best hackers. To achieve this, consider using a password generator or a complete sentence with spaces, letters, symbols, and numbers as your password.
Final thought
Please try all the above suggestions to secure your website. Site security is the most important factor and difficult job as well. You need to always keep an eye on every point to secure the site.
