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What can I do if my website has been hacked? What can you do to check?

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It is crucial to take immediate action if you suspect that your website has been compromised. You can endanger your reputation, your bottom line, and your customers if you don’t take immediate action. Here are some ways to tell if your computer has been compromised.

Hackers have discovered the Reactive Methods to Detect Your Website

System administrators can’t keep their websites monitored 24/7. Even automated website monitoring tools have gaps in between checks/scans. The alternative is reactive methods. This means that you can learn from outside sources that your website has been compromised. These reactive methods can help you determine if your website has been hacked.

Google claims this Site could be Hacked

Google Chrome alerts (or any other browser) that notify you about hacker activity

If a website visitor gets an alert from Google Chrome (or any other browser) that your site is insecure, in all probability your website has been hacked and infected with malware.

This image illustrates the warning you receive when your website is targeted and attacked by phishing campaigns.

This message may indicate that a cybercriminal has infected your website and is using it to launch phishing attacks. Your website has been compromised by phishing attacks. You and your website visitors could be targeted.

Below is an image that alerts users that the website they’re trying to visit has been infected.

Your hosting provider takes down your website because the site has been hacked

Your hosting provider will be notified of visitors to your website receive alerts about a hacker attack or malware-infected. Hosting providers receive alerts from their automated security tools and automated systems outside of their company. The hosting provider will take your website offline immediately. As part of their policy, some hosting providers will immediately format the infected server or account. This is done to protect the users and prevent infection. Your hosting provider will inform you via email that your site has been compromised.

Google Search Results flags your website as ‘Hacked or ‘Harmful.

Google search results can sometimes give you the exact images that you are looking for.

If such a result is seen in a search the results for which should include your website, it means that your website has been hacked.

Google usually removes hacked sites from its search results, but sometimes they are added with a message warning that “This website may be hacked or may cause harm to your computer.”

Google detected suspicious activity on your site by displaying the first message “This site may have been hacked”. This could mean that Google has detected suspicious activity on your website and made some changes to pages.

Google detected malware on the site, and this message shows that it could cause further damage for anyone visiting it.

Google Hack Check

Google Search Console will alert you about malware on websites

Google Search Console is a must-have for anyone who owns a website. It provides alerts about any Google issues while indexing the site and gives statistics regarding website visits via search.

Google Search Console will send you email alerts whenever you visit “Search Console Preferences”, which will include alerts about malware infection. This will allow you to quickly fix hacks before others. After signing in to Search Console, you can also visit the “Security Issues Panel” to check for hacking issues. It will display an alert if there is an infection as shown below.

Your malware scanner alerts you to a possible hack

Trusted malware scanners, like cWatch, alert you if your website has been infected/hacked. This method is preferred by many website owners as it takes the longest time to discover the hacker and infect your site. You will receive an email alert in the event of a hack or infection. You should be attentive to alerts. Also, don’t ignore any alert messages just because you have too many. You can choose which alerts you want to receive.

A customer informs you about a hack

Your website is probably visited more often than you are. Customers could visit your website many times and, if there is a hack, it will be the customer that finds it first and notifies you. If a customer contacts your site and informs you about a hack, let them know and then take the website offline to repair any damage.

Google Does Not Allow You to Check If Your Website Has Been Hacked.

Use a source code scanner to detect website hacks

It won’t be obvious from the outside if a hack occurs or a website is infected. One of the most proactive ways to detect hacks is to use a source code scanner such as cWatch. cWatch will inspect all of your source code and PHP files to identify malware patterns. If you are alerted to a problem, it will be addressed immediately.

Source code scanners look for patterns or malware signatures that match known malware codes to detect hacks. The scanners will compare your source code to a better version of the malware if it is newer. Newer infections that may not have detection signatures would be detected.

A monitoring service that also includes site/webpage changes can be used to check for hacks

It’s always a good idea to use a website monitoring service to check for site infections. However, it is also advisable to choose one that can detect changes to websites/web pages. You’ll be notified if there is a significant change in the website/webpage. Monitoring services can monitor multiple locations to detect hackers when hacked websites target users at a particular time or location. Monitoring can also be performed based on traffic sources or other parameters.

Monitor website traffic to spot spikes and identify hacks

This is crucial. This is important. Websites that have been hacked will experience a dramatic spike in traffic. This happens because the hacker sends links to your website to spam campaigns. You should not rely on javascript-based traffic monitoring software like Google Analytics to monitor spikes in website traffic. Tools like cWatch can be used to detect bot traffic that is often not detected by Google Analytics.

Remote scanners can be used to check for hacks

Remote scanners can scan your website for possible hacks. They only look at the HTML generated by the website and not the source code. Remote scanners can detect malware if it is included in the HTML, or if the code matches certain criteria. Use a remote scanner as an additional tool since it helps catch a variety of unsophisticated infections.

It is a good habit to regularly visit your website

It is a good idea to regularly check your website for any strange or unusual text. A scan can help you identify an infection if you find such things. You should also look out for PHP errors at the top of your website. This could indicate an infection.