My website was hacked. What should I do?
A hacked website is really frustrating — it's troublesome for your business and visitors, and removing a hack can be time-consuming. Let's go through the fastest and easiest way to fix your website.
Let's check for warnings
If you've seen "This site contains malware" or "The site ahead contains harmful programs" in connection with your site, there's definitely a problem. To check further, visit a site like Sucuri SiteCheck scanner and enter your domain name.
- If your website's been hacked, you'll see a warning here.
- No warning? It's less likely (but still possible) that your website has been compromised.
Note: Sucuri SiteCheck is a free website security scanner. Remote scanners have limited access and results are not guaranteed.
Change your passwords
If your site's been hacked, you need to immediately change all your passwords.
Note: To make sure you use the right instructions, find out what type of hosting account you have.
| Your hosting type | Passwords to reset |
|---|---|
| Linux Hosting with cPanel | Primary FTP, secondary FTP, databases, apps like WordPress or Joomla |
| Windows Hosting with Plesk | Primary FTP, secondary FTP, databases, apps like WordPress or Joomla |
Restore from backup
If you have a backup of your website (and database) that you know wasn't corrupted, you should re-upload it to your hosting account.
If you have Website Backup, you can easily do this for your cPanel or Plesk account.
If you don't have a backup tool, after resolving the issue we recommend adding Website Backup to your account.
Remove the hack
It's nearly impossible for anyone to reliably remove malware from a website by hand. To prevent your site from being compromised, we recommend using a Website Security plan that monitors and protects your website from malware and other potential security breaches.
Identify & fix the weakness
To prevent your site from getting hacked again, you should identify how your site was compromised. There are two types of weaknesses: passwords and structural problems.
Passwords
Most hacks happen because the attacker was able to guess your account's password by brute force. By simply changing your password (and using a stronger one this time), you can prevent these attacks from succeeding in the future.
Structural
These types of weaknesses require thorough testing to identify. There's a lot of security software that can perform these types of scans but, again, we recommend Sucuri SiteCheck scanner. Please note that remote scanners have limited access and results are not guaranteed.
