Has My Site been Hacked?

Hacked

Has My Site been Hacked? – Fix hacked website helps you to clean up your website and get it back on track, but more importantly, Fix hacked website will prevent your website from being contaminated. Contact us now for website malware cleaning and hack repair, or get full cloud-based website security for up to $9.90 a month.

When you believe that your website has been compromised, you will act quickly. Failure to act will jeopardize your credibility, your bottom line and your customers. Here’s how you can say if hacked:

The Sensitive Ways of Detecting Your Site Has Hacked

System administrators are not necessarily able to keep on tracking their websites all the time. Also automated surveillance tools on websites have differences between checks / scans. Therefore, the alternative is to hear from an outside source that the website has been compromised. Here’s a look at such constructive ways that can help you find out if your website is hacked

Google Chrome warnings (or any other browser) that will warn you about the hack

If a website visitor receives an alert from Google Chrome (or any other browser) that your website is unsafe, your website would definitely have been compromised and malware infiltrated.

When a message like this comes up, it needs to be understood that a cyber criminal may have compromised your website with malware and then use the website to conduct phishing attacks. You were attacked by a phishing attack and your website is used to conduct phishing attacks, too. Visitors to your website may end up being targeted.

The image below displays an warning that warns users that the website they are attempting to visit is compromised and may affect them.

has-my-site-been-hacked-alert

If the server is compromised, the website is taken down by the hosting Provider

When visitors to your website receive notifications that your website has been hacked and infected with malware, they report it to your hosting company. Other warnings are also provided by the hosting providers from their automated security tools or from automated systems outside their company. The hosting company will most likely take your site off-line following this. Many hosting providers may format the server or hosting account that has been compromised right away as part of their policy. It is done to protect and secure users from contamination, which may occur even after the site is taken offline. The hosting provider will warn you that your website has been hacked,via email.

In Google Search Results your website is flagged as ‘Hacked’ or ‘Harmful’

malware-attack-warning

If the results for which your website should be included are seen in a search, this means that your website has been hacked for.

Google eliminates compromised websites from search pages much of the time, but in some cases they are included with a highlighted message stating “This site may be compromised” or “This site may be harmful to your machine.”

The first post, “This site could be compromised,” means something unusual on your website has been identified by Google. It may include some unexpected improvements to existing websites, including new pages with SEO spam / redirects etc.

The second warning, “This site can affect your device,” suggests that Google has found malware that could cause additional damage to anyone visiting the site.

You get warnings about malware from the Google Search Console on your website

Anyone with a website can set up Google Search Console (also known as Google Webmaster Tools); this offers warnings for any problems Google encounters when indexing the website and also offers search information for website visits.

Google Search Console can frequently send you notifications about your website if you go to “Search Console Preferences” and allow email alerts-this includes warnings about malware infections. And you will be able to patch hacks on time, even before alerts are given to others. You may also test for hacking issues after signing in to the Search Console by visiting the “Security Issues section” If an infection is present it will trigger an alarm as shown below-

google-search-console-malware-alert

Your malware scanner warns you about a hack

Trusted malware scanners, such as Fix hacked website, will warn you if your website is infected / hacked. Many website owners see this as a favored approach because it usually has the shortest time between infection and hack discovery. When you discover a hack / infection you will receive an warning via email. So you have to keep an eye on alerts and always try not to ignore warning notifications only because you get too many. You can set the types of warnings you should be getting.

A customer notifies you of a hack.

It’s clear that the guests visit your website more frequently than you do yourself. There could be several thousand customer visits and if a hack occurs it will most likely be a customer who first points it out and alerts you long before you get an warning or Google detects the infection. Therefore, when a customer calls you and notifies you of a hack, let the customer know first that appropriate action is being taken and then take the website off-line for repair and to prevent any harm to others.

The Constructive Ways to Test Your Site Until Google Has Been Hacked

Has My Site been Hacked? – Detect website hacks using a scanner with source code

When a hack happens, and a website is compromised, it will not be accessible from outside. Of the many proactive methods you can use to search for vulnerabilities, the first would be to use a Fixhackedwebsite-like source code scanner. To search for malware patterns, Fixhackedwebsite will do a detailed and systematic review of all the PHP’s and other source code.

If something is detected you will be immediately alerted

Source code scanners detect hacks by either looking for signatures / patterns of malware that fit known malware codes. But the scanners equate the source code with a proven good version of the same code when it’s a newer malware that is there. So new infections, for which signatures for identification may not exist, would also be detected.

Check for exploits with a monitoring service which also involves changes to the site / webpage

While using a monitoring service to search for website viruses, it is always safe to opt for one that will also detect if there are changes to the website / webpage. If there is a shift that is more than a percentage, then you would be notified. Monitoring services can help monitor and detect hacks from multiple locations when a compromised website targets users at some place or at some particular time. The control can also be based on other criteria, such as traffic source for example.

Search for hacks by tracking spikes traffic on website

That is very significant. You should monitor your website for traffic spikes and if there are drastic spikes you should use a source code scan to test for infection. This is because websites that have been hacked will get a dramatic spike in traffic. The spike occurs when the hacker will send links to your website for spam campaigns to be carried out. You can use not just javascript based traffic management software like Google Analytics to track website traffic for spikes. You can also use tools such as Fixhackedwebsite to track bot traffic, which Google Analytics normally doesn’t track.

Using remote scanner to search for hacks

Use remote scanners, which look at the “made” version of the site, i.e. the HTML that the website creates and not the source code, it is always advisable to check for hacks on the site. Therefore, if a criminal wants to include malware in the HTML, or decides to include a code that would present malware only to certain users at certain times and meet certain requirements, it is always likely that a remote scanner will detect those infections. Use a remote scanner as an additional tool because it helps catch a variety of infections.

Consider it a habit to frequently visit your website

You should make it a habit to periodically check your website to search for improvements or strange texts that are inserted into your pages. If you find anything like that, a scan may help you spot an infection. Always check for PHP errors that mostly occur at the very top of your webpage and may signify an infection.

To sum it up, indeed…

We discussed the various methods that can be used to detect infections on websites. Here’s a summary of some of the big points we’ve discussed …

  • Conduct daily Google searches for your website.
  • Check your website many times daily.
  • Set email notifications, depending on Google Search Console.
  • Set up email notifications using accurate malware scanner.
  • Depend on customers for Website Security inputs.
  • To test for infections using the source code scanner.
  • Look out for sudden, dramatic increases in traffic on websites.
  • Using website monitoring software to track changes to the webpage.
  • Using scanners online, as well.