Behind us are the times when hackers attacked only large companies for various reasons. The manner of hacking small and medium-sized companies, all the way to individuals, has become a worrying fact for many years. Hacking is a problem faced by every individual or company in today’s world, where technology advances minute by minute.
In many situations, companies realize that the problem occurred only when valuable information or money is lost. Many users find themselves in situations like these due to a lack of technical knowledge, not knowing someone in their environment who could help, or a lack of money to hire someone to do it adequately.
To help you out, we will introduce you to the signs that show your site has been hacked and what you can do to prevent such occurrences.
Table of Contents
A warning from the browser when visiting your website
This is a situation where, when accessing your website, you or your users see a browser message (whether it is Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, or Opera) that contains information that your website has been hacked.
The search engines just mentioned use Google’s blacklist to display warning messages in the event of a hack, and this message is most often shown when your page is blacklisted.
You cannot access your site
If you cannot access or log in to your website, this may also be one sign that a hack is ongoing. First, you need to check that there was no wrong password entry.
In situations like these, hackers change user passwords to prevent you from accessing the site. If you still cannot access it after trying to reset the password, this is a hacking sign, and you need professional help.
Your site is no longer online
In many cases, you may not be aware that hacking is in progress. The service company regularly scans the servers for any interference. We distinguish many factors as to why your hosting company may put your site out of use.
Whether it is the occurrence of spam, phishing emails, or malicious code on your server, your provider will recognize it and put your site out of use, and it will no longer be available.
The page is slower than usual
If you notice that your website is slower than usual and displays messages that some errors have occurred, the malware is likely to be using your resources. Sometimes pages take twice as long to load, as opposed to some average time.
Hackers usually choose sites that contain a place to pay, log in, or register because that’s where the most sensitive user information is entered.
Google search engine marks your website as hacked
In many cases, Google removes hacked websites from search results. Although there are exceptions, the page can still be displayed with the message “Website may be hacked.” This message refers to an irregularity or change on an existing website.
Page saturation with unwanted ads and pop-ups
This is a sign that your site is compromised with so-called cross-site scripting (XSS). This way, hackers try to gather money by displaying ads of most often unwanted context on targeted websites. Another way to make money is the use of pop-ups that are constantly appearing on your site.
Visitors complain about the malfunction of the site
Suppose you have high daily traffic and well-established communication with customers. Customers may contact you with information that your site has been hacked, even before you receive notifications from Google or the browser.
That will happen due to dissatisfaction about not accessing your site. This way, you can provide support to your customers and solve the problem as soon as possible.
Appearance of changed data on the page
It is possible that when your site is hacked, you will also notice specific changes to the files. Hackers typically make changes to files to insert malicious code, retrieve your personal information, or send spam to new addresses.
Changes can also be of a milder type, like adding fake content or links leading to suspicious addresses.
Your email is found in the spam folder
Another sign that your site is not working is the lack of respondents to your newsletters. That happens because hackers send spam to different addresses through your site.
Then your domain will be blacklisted, which means that any email you send will go into the spam folder. Any emails found in that folder lead to losing business reputation and connections with many clients and customers.
How to fix a hacked site?
Now that you have an insight into some of the signs of a hack – we have a solution for you that can help you. It is a standalone PHP script called Emergency Recovery Script (ERS). ERS recovers WordPress websites in the most challenging situations.
Whether files have been deleted, infected with malicious code, an incorrectly installed plugin has damaged the site, or there is a problem with the site URLs, ERS is here to fix all the issues.
The fastest way you can use it is to install WP Reset PRO, which includes automatic installation of ERS on WordPress websites. The ERS installation will not slow down your site or interfere with it in any way. It is important to note that the tool is entirely free.
It offers tools that can be of help to you. You can have a detailed insight into the information about your WP installation, and it can be a great start in repairing a website. There is also a tool that checks core files and compares them with the original copy.
If it recognizes any modification, it will report it. In addition to these tools, we will mention those that offer you access to snapshots, management of plugins, themes, user roles, and accounts. The most powerful tool you can access is the one that completely resets your WP installation.
This will not delete any files, themes, or plugins, but only the database will return to its original settings. If you want to dedicate yourself to resetting other aspects, we recommend you use WP Reset, which offers more possibilities and is created for such tasks.
Conclusion
The whole hacking process can give you a severe headache. But it is not the end of the world because there is a way to recover from that situation. The most important preventative step is maintaining a healthy website with routine checks of minor details.
In this article, we introduced you to a few signs to recognize hacks and react on time. To solve the problem faster and more efficiently, there is a combination of the most powerful tools – ERS and WP Reset is an excellent team in the fight against hacking.
