What should I do if my website has been hacked

Updated on October 12th, 2019

Website security is a very important feature for any website in 2019. There have been several attacks on business websites for ransomware and for information theft. There are several steps a business can to keep their website safe. But incase the website is hacked, it is very likely that you will get hacked again. Once your website is hacked the first thing you need to do is recover from the attack, and after that you need to make sure your website is secure from the vulnerabilities that were exploited.

Here are few steps which can help you recovering your hacked website.

Recovering from an attack

Contact your hosting provider

First thing you need to do is contact your hosting company and get as much details about the attack as possible. This information will include the time of attack, location from where the attack was generated and the number of effected files.

In case you are using a share hosting and you and you have more domains hosted than it is likely that those are also affected.

Remove the malware or other content that has been injected in to your site

After you have received all the information it is time for removing infected files and content that was injected into your website. You hosting company have the tools to remove this content, in case your hosting company has no resources than you must consider some alternatives like StopThatHacker to scan your website and remove the malicious content. StopTheHacker will also help by regularly scanning your site for malware to help mitigate the future probability of your site being hacked.

Check to see if your site is on any blacklists

Now check if your site is not on any blacklist, a blacklist has bad effects on your website SEO and SERPs. Though these are not long term effects but these will surely have some drastic effects. Once you have checked it now resubmit your website in Google Webmaster again.

Preventing and mitigating the risks of a future hack

Once you have recovered your website, it is time to secure your website from more threats.

Keep you CMS always updated, keep themes, plugins and add-ons updated and install latest patches.
The themes and plugins pose a vulnerability to the website so keep in mind that these are always updated, and you are using premium versions not nulled or cracked ones.
Try to use CDN to keep the content safe.
If you are using Cloudflare then activate the Web Application Firewall available with paid version of Cloudflare.
Install plugins and themes from safe platforms and lock down your admin back end.
Always create a back up of your website, incase you have an attack and your website is destroyed by the malware you have access to the back up of your website.

Fortunately, at Canberra IT Solutions we offer website security inspection and fix service for any customer having website hacked issues. Let’s talk for more details.