해킹된 웹사이트를 쉽게 복구하는 방법은 무엇입니까? (전체 가이드)

웹사이트가 해킹되었습니까? ? 저희에게 연락하는 대부분의 웹사이트 관리자는 웹사이트 리디렉션 또는 웹사이트 스팸 팝업과 같은 증상을 봅니다. 이것은 당연히 스트레스가 될 수 있습니다. 안심하세요. 해킹된 웹사이트를 수정할 수 있습니다.

웹사이트를 청소하기 전에 웹사이트가 해킹되었는지 확인해야 합니다. 보안 플러그인으로 웹사이트를 스캔하여 웹사이트 해킹을 확인합니다.

해킹을 확인하면 다음 단계가 훨씬 쉬워집니다. 이 기사에서는 웹 사이트에서 멀웨어를 식별하고 정리하는 방법을 단계별로 설명합니다.

틀;DR: MalCare로 해킹된 웹사이트를 몇 분 안에 복구하세요. MalCare의 알고리즘은 가장 완고한 맬웨어를 식별하고 치료하는 데 도움이 됩니다. 해킹은 시간이 지남에 따라 악화되므로 빠르게 행동하는 것을 잊지 마십시오.

웹사이트가 해킹되었는지 어떻게 알 수 있나요?

해킹된 웹사이트를 정리하기 전에 웹사이트가 해킹되었는지 확인해야 합니다. 스캔은 해킹을 확인하는 가장 좋은 방법이지만 해킹을 식별하는 데 도움이 되도록 해킹의 증상도 알고 있어야 합니다.

해킹된 웹사이트의 증상

웹 사이트가 해킹되었는지 항상 확신할 수는 없습니다. 악성코드의 유형에 따라 해킹의 증상이 다를 수도 있고 전혀 나타나지 않을 수도 있습니다. 그리고 무엇을 찾아야 할지 모르겠다면 맬웨어가 몰래 침투할 수 있습니다. 해킹은 시간이 지남에 따라 악화되므로 신속하게 식별하는 것이 중요합니다. 따라서 해킹된 웹 사이트가 있는 경우 어떤 증상을 주의해야 하는지 알아야 합니다. 다음은 해킹된 웹사이트에서 나타나는 가장 일반적인 증상입니다.

Google 검색 결과 확인

Google은 맬웨어를 탐지하는 데 매우 능숙합니다. 그들의 봇은 검색 엔진 사용자를 위한 더 안전한 브라우징 경험을 촉진하기 위해 웹사이트를 크롤링할 때 맬웨어를 지속적으로 감시합니다. 웹사이트가 해킹되면 곧 Google에 표시될 가능성이 있습니다.

Google 검색 결과를 확인하려면 웹사이트를 구체적으로 구글링하십시오. 예를 들어, Google에서 Twitter를 검색하려는 경우 site:twitter.com을 조회할 수 있습니다. 검색어 뒤에 이것을 추가하여 웹사이트에서 특정 키워드를 검색할 수도 있습니다. 해킹의 경우 Google 검색 결과에 다음과 같은 문제가 표시됩니다.

정크 메타 설명

메타 설명은 웹 페이지에 대한 내용을 설명하는 검색 결과 아래에 표시되는 작은 설명입니다. 일반적으로 웹페이지에서 설정하거나 관련 스니펫을 사용합니다. 그러나 웹사이트가 해킹된 경우 메타 설명에 정크 값, 일본어 문자 또는 관련 없는 키워드가 표시될 수 있습니다.

색인된 페이지

해킹으로 인해 웹사이트에 스팸 페이지가 추가되는 경우가 많습니다. Google에서 귀하의 웹사이트를 검색하고 색인이 생성된 페이지가 귀하의 웹사이트에 있는 페이지와 동일한 번호인지 확인하여 이러한 일이 발생했는지 확인할 수 있습니다. 숫자가 훨씬 높으면 웹사이트에서 색인이 생성되는 스팸 페이지이며 해킹의 징후입니다.

Google 블랙리스트

이전에 논의한 바와 같이 Google은 사용자에게 안전한 경험을 제공하기 위해 최선을 다하고 있습니다. 그 일환으로 매일 웹사이트를 크롤링하고 맬웨어가 감지되면 플래그를 지정하는 Google 세이프 브라우징 이니셔티브를 시작했습니다. Google 블랙리스트는 웹사이트를 방문하기 전에 검색 결과에 경고를 표시하거나 큰 빨간색 화면을 표시하는 등 여러 알림으로 나타날 수 있습니다. 일부 경고는 다음과 같습니다.

• 피싱 사이트 미리
• 이 사이트에는 멀웨어가 포함되어 있습니다.
• 이 사이트는 안전하지 않은 것으로 보고되었습니다.
• 해킹된 사이트일 수 있습니다.
• 사기성 사이트 앞

웹사이트 검색 결과에 이러한 플래그가 표시되면 웹사이트가 해킹되었을 가능성이 큽니다.

웹사이트에서 문제 확인

일부 웹사이트 해킹은 증상을 전혀 나타내지 않습니다. 그러나 일부 증상은 웹사이트에 나타날 수 있습니다. 매일 방문하는 웹사이트의 눈에 보이는 부분은 웹사이트의 전반적인 상태에 대해 많은 것을 말해 줄 수 있습니다. 따라서 웹사이트에서 이러한 증상 중 일부에 주의하십시오.

스팸 팝업

웹사이트에 승인되지 않은 팝업이 표시되면 멀웨어일 가능성이 있습니다. 이러한 스팸 팝업은 고객을 스팸 사이트로 유인하거나 공짜로 위장한 맬웨어를 다운로드하도록 하기 위한 것입니다. 스팸 팝업은 악성코드의 강력한 표시이지만 웹사이트에서 광고 네트워크를 활성화하면 나타날 수도 있습니다. 이를 발견하면 최대한 빨리 웹 사이트를 스캔하고 정리하여 확인하십시오.

스팸 사이트로 리디렉션

악의적인 리디렉션은 큰 문제입니다. 때때로 웹사이트의 다른 페이지와 함께 로그인 페이지가 다른 웹사이트로 리디렉션되므로 혼란스러울 수 있습니다. 이런 일이 발생하면 웹 사이트에 로그인할 수 없거나 문제가 무엇인지 파악할 수 있을 만큼 오랫동안 웹 사이트에 머물 수 없습니다. 스팸 사이트로 자동 리디렉션되는 것은 웹사이트에 악성 코드가 있다는 확실한 신호입니다.

피싱 페이지

피싱은 사용자로부터 개인 및 금융 정보를 얻기 위해 스푸핑 전술을 사용하는 일종의 사회 공학 공격입니다. 일반적으로 피싱 페이지는 공식 페이지처럼 보이도록 하고 은행 로고나 브랜딩을 사용하여 더 설득력 있게 보이게 합니다. 웹사이트에서 피싱 페이지를 본다면 웹사이트 해킹의 징후입니다.

깨진 페이지

페이지 상단 또는 하단에 임의의 코드가 있는 페이지를 보거나 페이지의 요소가 흐트러져 보이는 경우 맬웨어의 징후일 수 있습니다. 플러그인이나 테마의 오작동으로 인해 페이지가 깨질 수 있지만, 악성코드의 가능성이 높습니다.

죽음의 하얀 화면

죽음의 흰색 화면은 웹 사이트를 방문하고 브라우저가 비어 있을 때 발생합니다. 무엇이 잘못되었는지 또는 어떻게 고칠지 모르기 때문에 이것은 스트레스가 많은 상황입니다. 또한 이 경우 wp-admin에 액세스할 수 있는 방법이 없으며 자신의 웹사이트에 액세스할 수 없습니다.

웹사이트 백엔드 확인

웹사이트의 백엔드는 웹사이트가 해킹되었는지 여부를 나타낼 수도 있습니다. 백엔드에서도 증상을 확인할 수 있습니다. 하지만 전문가나 코드 로직을 이해하는 사람이 아니라면 감지가 불가능할 수 있습니다.

활동 기록

웹사이트 백엔드에서 증상을 찾는 좋은 방법은 웹사이트의 활동 로그를 보는 것입니다. WP 활동 로그와 같은 플러그인을 설치하여 웹사이트의 활동에 액세스하고 의심스러운 활동이 있는지 확인할 수 있습니다.

사이트의 이상한 코드

귀하의 웹사이트는 코드로 구성되며 맬웨어도 코드의 일부로 위장됩니다. 따라서 웹 사이트의 아무 곳에나 숨겨져 무해한 것처럼 보일 수 있습니다. 웹사이트 코드의 변경 사항이나 웹사이트의 이상한 코드를 발견하면 빠르게 행동하고 더 악화되기 전에 해킹을 확인해야 합니다.

비정상적인 사용자 활동

짧은 시간에 너무 많은 새 게시물을 작성하거나 설정을 변경하는 등 특정 사용자의 비정상적인 활동이 있는 경우 해킹의 징후이거나 계정이 도용되어 해킹으로 이어질 수 있습니다.

권한 상승

해커는 종종 기존 웹 사이트 사용자를 사용하여 계정에 액세스하고 권한을 상승시켜 전체 웹 사이트에 액세스합니다. 이것이 권한이 승인 없이 갑자기 에스컬레이션된 웹사이트 사용자를 주의해야 하는 이유입니다.

가짜 플러그인

해커는 사용자가 맬웨어를 찾는 것을 원하지 않습니다. 따라서 테마 및 플러그인 폴더와 같이 합법적으로 보이는 폴더에 숨깁니다. 가짜 플러그인은 맬웨어의 전파자입니다. 가짜 플러그인 폴더에는 파일이 한두 개뿐이며 이름이 이상합니다.

웹 호스트로부터의 통신을 찾습니다.

웹 호스트는 서버의 해킹된 웹 사이트가 많은 골칫거리를 유발할 수 있으므로 웹 사이트의 보안에 투자합니다. 따라서 대부분의 웹 호스트는 정기적으로 웹사이트를 검색합니다.

웹 호스트가 멀웨어를 감지했다는 이메일을 보내거나 멀웨어를 이유로 사이트를 일시 중단하는 경우 웹사이트가 해킹당했다고 가정하는 것이 안전합니다.

주의해야 할 또 다른 사항은 서버 사용입니다. 웹 호스트에서 웹사이트 트래픽에 큰 변화 없이 서버 사용량이 급증했다고 알려준다면 이는 맬웨어 때문일 수 있습니다.

방문자 피드백에 주의

때때로 해커는 웹 사이트 관리자에게 특히 멀웨어를 숨깁니다. 따라서 언급된 증상이 나타나지 않을 수 있지만 방문자는 볼 수 있습니다. 방문자가 사이트의 스팸 페이지에 대해 불평하거나 사이트가 비정상적으로 작동하는 경우 이 피드백을 매우 심각하게 받아들이고 최대한 빨리 검사를 수행하십시오.

방문자는 웹 사이트에서 스팸 이메일을 받거나 사이트를 방문할 때 리디렉션되는 등 관리자가 놓친 증상을 종종 봅니다. 피드백이 웹사이트가 충분히 빠르게 로드되지 않는다는 불만이더라도, 아주 작은 증상이라도 맬웨어의 징후일 수 있으므로 조사하고 싶습니다.

웹사이트 분석 살펴보기

웹사이트 분석은 고객 행동 및 CTR 이상의 정보를 제공할 수 있습니다. 무엇을 찾아야 하는지 알고 있다면 웹사이트 분석에서 맬웨어의 증상을 찾을 수 있습니다. 다음은 주의해야 할 몇 가지 사항입니다.

검색 콘솔

Google 검색 콘솔은 웹사이트를 간헐적으로 검사하고 웹사이트에서 멀웨어를 감지할 수 있습니다. If it finds malware, it will flag it and you can see the details under the ‘Security issues’ tab.

Spike in traffic from specific regions

If you suddenly see a spike in your traffic from specific regions or countries that are not necessarily a part of your target geographies, this could be a sign of malicious traffic on your websites, like bots or hackers. Spikes in traffic can be a forerunner to malware, or an indication of traffic going to spam pages. As a rule of thumb, it is just better to check these out regularly.

Pay attention to performance issues

When your website is hacked, you may not always get a big red notice that tells you it has been hacked. Sometimes, it shows up as smaller, less visible symptoms. These symptoms can be of any nature, but performance issues in your website are easy to miss if you aren’t vigilant. Pay attention to the following issues, as their presence could be a sign of malware on your website.

Site is slow

When your website is hacked, it is injected with malicious code and files. While malicious code in itself can wreak havoc on your website, its presence itself can cause issues. With the additional data of the malware, your website servers can get overwhelmed and your website’s loading time may be affected.

Certain hacks, like bot attacks, can riddle your website with requests and increase the loading time even more.

Site is inaccessible

Malware can make your site inaccessible for users and visitors alike. DoS attacks or redirect hacks can make it impossible to access your website or sometimes parts of it. Although it is impossible to not notice that your site is inaccessible, it is an added concern to gain access at the earliest so that you can clean it up.

Emails from the website go into the spam folder

Email services want to offer their users a safe experience, so they filter the incoming mails and send emails to spam if they notice anything suspicious about them. Hacked websites compromise their users’ online security. Therefore, any emails coming from hacked websites go directly to the spam folder.

While there are other reasons such as spam keywords or overtly promotional messaging for ending up in the spam folder, malware is a big reason. If the emails being sent from your website are regularly ending up in spam folders, this could be because your website is hacked.

Scan your hacked website

Just suspecting a hack is not enough, you need to confirm the hack before you can go ahead and clean it up. Scanning is the best way to diagnose your website and confirm a hack. There are a few ways in which you can scan your website.

Scan your website with a deep scanner

A deep scanner such as MalCare thoroughly scans your website and looks for well-concealed malware. Deep scanners are the perfect way to locate malware as they crawl through every nook and corner of your website and find even the slightest hints of malware, even if it is hidden in the most unlikely spaces.

In order to scan your website with MalCare, you need to install MalCare on your website. You can do that through the WordPress repository or the MalCare website directly.

Once you install MalCare, MalCare will scan your website automatically the first time. After that, you can set up an automatic scan schedule, or click on the scan button to scan your website.

In a matter of minutes, you will know if your website is hacked.

Scan your website with an online scanner

Online scanners such as the Sucuri Site Check scan the visible parts of your website for malware. While this is not completely effective, it can be a good first step in your diagnostics process.

Certain types of malware such as the pharma hack or the Japanese keyword hack can show up on the visible code of your website as these hacks alter the frontend code of your website.

But bear in mind that online scanners cannot be the only tool you use for diagnosing your website. If you get a positive result for malware, you can rest assured your site is hacked. Conversely, though, a clean chit doesn’t mean that your site isn’t hacked.

Scan your website manually

You can scan your website for malware manually. But we absolutely do not recommend this course of action. We are including this section so that you know all your options, but unless you know exactly what you are doing, it is unwise to do so. Chances are that you will miss something or potentially flag legitimate code as malware.

Additionally, there is no blueprint for malware. Junk code could be anything and hide anywhere on your website. So you have to be well acquainted with the code in the first place to detect malware.

Having said that, the first step to identifying malware manually is to look up the recently modified files on your website. You can do this through the File Manager. If you haven’t made the changes to the file that shows up, it is most likely malware.

The best course of action, as we have previously mentioned, is to use a security plugin like MalCare. MalCare is thorough and fast, which is necessary because hacks should be dealt with quickly. Once you have a definitive answer to whether or not your site is hacked, all you need to do is upgrade to clean it.

Some simple diagnostics to run

While scanning is the best way to confirm a hack, there are also some other simple ways in which you can diagnose a hack on your website. These diagnostics are not as accurate as security scanners but can give you a good insight into the health of your website.

• Visit your website from an incognito window , and check if any symptoms show up.
• Check the number of pages on your website when you run a site search on Google. If the number is much higher than the actual number of pages, it could be an indication of spam pages being indexed on your site.
• Check the activity log for sudden user privilege escalation or ghost users.
• Check for fake plugins in the wp-content folder. Fake plugins usually have odd names and only have one or two files.
• Check if any plugins or themes you use have reported vulnerabilities. If yes, update these at the earliest.

These diagnostics can show up symptoms and give you a fair idea regarding the security of your website. But you should still use a security scanner to confirm the hack and be thorough.

How to repair a hacked website?

At this stage, you should have a confirmation of the hack. This information is what is going to help you with the next step i.e. cleaning your hacked website.

There are various ways to fix your hacked website and we have listed the three most common ways in which you can do it.

[RECOMMENDED] Fix hacked website with MalCare

The most effective and quickest way to repair your hacked website is to use MalCare. MalCare is designed by security experts after painstaking research and development. This expertise allows you to clean up every trace of malware from your site with the click of a button.

If you have already installed MalCare on your website, all you need to do is upgrade your account and click the auto-clean button, and voila! Your website is clean.

If you haven’t installed MalCare yet, go to the MalCare website, install MalCare, and auto clean your website. It’s as easy as that.

Hire a security expert

Another way to repair your hacked website is to hire a security expert who can manually clean your website for you. While this is not the best course of action, it is still preferred to a DIY clean-up.

Cleanup services by experts take time, as they do it manually. And consequently, they are expensive. While we cannot guarantee the quality of the services provided by every security solution, MalCare offers an emergency service with your subscription, if you require additional support along with the plugin clean-ups.

This also applies to repeated hacks or malware, where experts usually charge a fee per clean-up, but MalCare’s services are covered throughout the year within your subscription.

Repair your hacked website manually

Manual cleanups are not the most effective or quick, because unless you are a security expert, a lot of what you do will be trial and error. This takes time, which can worsen the hack. But if you accidentally make a mistake, it can actually worsen your situation.

We often deal with frantic calls from website admin who have tried to clean up their website manually and broken their website by accident. This takes way more time to fix than if you use any other method in the first place.

If you still need to repair your hacked website manually for any reason, here is how you can do it.

1. Make sure you have access to your website

In case your web host has suspended your account, and you have lost access to your website, the first thing to do is regain access. You can email your web host and request them to grant access for cleanup purposes. If they do not comply, you will have to use FTP to get a copy of your website, so you can clean it locally.

You can also ask your web host for the list of malware on your website. To know more about how to deal with a web host account suspension, you can go through our guide.

The next step is to back up your website. It may be hacked, but at least you still have a website. In case something goes wrong during the cleanup, you can always restore it. But without a backup, you may lose all your website data if everything doesn’t go according to the plan.

Before you can start cleaning, you need a reference. For this, you need to download clean installs of the WordPress core, plugin, and theme files. You can download them from the WordPress repository. But make sure that you download the same versions as the ones on your website. Otherwise, there may be differences in the code and you won’t be able to compare files.

Now comes the tricky part. You will have to reinstall the core files to your website. Start with the wp-admin and wp-includes folders. You can directly replace these two folders as they do not contain any user content.

Once this is done, check the wp-uploads folder. This folder should not have any malicious PHP files. So if you come across any, delete them. Now you have to start looking for strange code in the files. Look into these files specifically:

• index.php
• wp-config.php
• wp-settings.php
• wp-load.php
• .htaccess

We realize that strange code is a vague explanation but there isn’t one specific code that constitutes malware. So you will have to be extra careful. Especially since these are core files, do not delete anything unless you are absolutely sure it is malware.

1. Clean plugins and themes

Moving on, it is time to clean up the plugin and theme files. You will find these files in the wp-content folder. You will have to compare the clean installs with the files on your website. This can take a significant amount of time, so we recommend using an online diffchecker for this. This will help you find any differences in the two files. You can start by looking for the following active theme files:

• header.php
• 바닥글.php
• functions.php

Note:Given that themes and plugins are customizable, the customizations can show up as additional code. So in case you are deleting any code that is different from the clean installs, it might wipe out the customizations or stop the plugins and themes from working.

1. Clean database tables

The final step in the core clean-up process is the database. To clean up the database tables, you will require phpMyAdmin with which you can download and open the database tables and take a look at the code.

Now take a look at the database tables and see if you find any odd code or scripts. Start with your existing pages and posts because you know how they are supposed to look. You can find them in the wp-posts table. Also, look for newly created pages and posts, and see if you find any that were not created by you. Next, you can look into the wp-options table. These two tables often carry malware.

1. Remove all the backdoors

The cleaning of the files is only half the battle won. The malware came from backdoors in your website, and as long as the backdoors are still there, your site is still at risk. So the next step is to remove all the backdoors.

Backdoors can be present anywhere on your website so you need to look for them thoroughly. You can look for popular backdoor keywords such as eval, base64_decode, gzinflate, preg_replace, or str_rot13.

Note:These keywords are often present in backdoors but they also have some legitimate uses in plugins and themes and deleting these could cause problems in the functioning of the extensions.

1. Reupload clean files

It is now time to reupload all your cleaned files back onto your website. You need to first delete the existing files and database and then re-upload all the files that you have cleaned. You can use File Manager and phpMyAdmin for this.

Given that this process is exactly like restoring a manual backup, you can take a look at our comprehensive guide on how to do that.

1. Clear cache

The last thing to do is to clear the cache on your WordPress website. Cache is used to create copies of your website in order to load it faster. But if your website is hacked, chances are that the cached versions of it also have traces of malware. So even after the cleanup, your website might still have malware.

So to remove malware entirely from your website, clear the cache entirely from your website.

1. Use a security scanner to confirm

The worst is over, the clean-up is done! Now all you need to do is use a security scanner to confirm that your website is malware-free. This step is important because it tells you if your attempt was successful. If yes, you can move forward. But if not, you will have to recheck everything again. In this case, it is best to invest in a security solution.

What is the impact of a hacked website?

A hack can get your website blacklisted, your web host account suspended, and leave you with no website. But is that all? The impact of a hacked website is a lot more profound than the immediate effects. If not fixed in time, the consequences of a hack can get exponentially worse. These are some of the ways in which a hack can impact you:

• Loss of revenue
• Loss of traffic
• Plummeting SEO rankings
• Loss of customer trust
• Damage to brand reputation
• Clean up costs
• PR costs
• Legal issues

This list is not exhaustive in any way. Depending on your website, the nature of your business, and the data on your website, the impact of a hacked website can be far wider.

How to revert the damage of a website hack?

A website hack affects your business, and users in many ways. Once the website is hacked, there is already a ton of damage, as we discussed earlier. You will need to take steps to revert this damage. Here are a few measures you can take to recover from a hacked site.

• Scan your website for vulnerabilities
• Request Google to take your website off the blacklist
• Change all your passwords and ensure that strong passwords are used
• Review all user accounts and check for any privilege escalations
• Never use nulled themes or plugins
• Use a security plugin with a strong firewall

How to prevent your website from getting hacked again

Your website is now malware-free. But did you know that a hacked website has a higher chance of getting hacked again? You might have spent hours or days cleaning up your website and still see another hack in a few weeks. This can be disheartening, but there are ways to avoid any future hacks.

Use a security plugin

The easiest way to make sure that your website is secure is to install a security plugin. Of the many basic and advanced plugins available online, MalCare is one of the best. MalCare does a stellar job of scanning and cleaning hacks, but it also works in a protective capacity.

Plugins like MalCare can protect your sites from a variety of threats, including bots, spam links, and more. By using advanced firewalls and intelligent threat detection, Malcare’s plugins can make sure that your website is defended, even from new threats.

Update your website

Update everything on your website, no exceptions. Your themes, your plugins, your WordPress core, whatever you have installed on your website should be updated to its latest version as soon as possible.

The reason behind this is simple—updates patch critical software vulnerabilities. If you ever take a look at the changelog of your latest updates, you will notice a list of bugs and vulnerabilities that have been patched in that update. These vulnerabilities are usually discovered by security researchers, who inform the creators of that theme or plugin, allowing them to patch it immediately. Once the patch has been released, the vulnerabilities are made public, enabling hackers to target any website running the vulnerable code.

Unfortunately, many websites aren’t updated regularly, since the owners worry that the updates might break something. While this is true, the fact remains that not updating your website is far more likely to cause you losses than any delays caused by updating it.

Also, there are ways to update your website safely. You can take regular backups of your website that can be restored if an update breaks your website. But the safest way to update your website is using a staging server. You can safely test out new updates and features on a staging server before you deploy them on your website, this way updates are taken care of without compromising your website.

Harden your WordPress website

WordPress recommends a list of measures that website admin should take in order to secure their websites. This is known as WordPress hardening and includes a list of things such as using strong passwords and two-factor authentication. Take a look at how to harden your WordPress site in order to get detailed instructions for the same.

Use two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication allows you to add an extra line of defense on your login page, which deters attacks on your login page such as brute force attacks. Two-factor authentication will usually ask you for a one-time password after your login credentials so that your website is extra secure from hacks.

Install SSL

SSL is basically encryption that protects any communication happening with your website. By installing SSL on your website, you make sure that none of the data is intercepted by hackers while sending or receiving requests from other servers.

SSL also helps you improve your SEO efforts as Google has started actively penalizing sites that do not use SSL.

Use strong passwords

This may seem like a common-sense measure, but even today weak passwords are one of the most common reasons for websites getting hacked. Admins usually pick an easy password so that they can remember it. But doing so can affect your website security.

We recommend using a password manager so that you can pick a strong password without having to memorize it for logging in every time.

Reset user accounts

User accounts are often responsible for hacks. Hackers gain access to one account and make their way towards the rest of your website through the account. So in order to make sure that your accounts are secure, change the credentials for all the accounts every once in a while.

How did your website get hacked?

Given that your website is made up of code, hacks are common. Because code cannot be foolproof, and there is no such thing as a 100% secure website. But that does not mean you cannot prevent hacks at all. In fact, with the right measures, you can secure your website really well.

So if you’re wondering how your website got hacked, it is probably one of the following reasons.

Undetected backdoors

As we discussed in a previous section, backdoors are a big risk. Backdoors are basically loopholes in the website code that hackers exploit in order to gain access. These backdoors are usually injected through malware in one way or another. Since hackers design malware so that it stays hidden, backdoors often go undetected unless you have a strong security plugin.

Vulnerabilities in themes and plugins

Your themes and plugins files may have vulnerabilities that are exploited to hack your website. Vulnerabilities are mistakes or oversights in the website code that occur due to human error. Vulnerabilities, by themselves, are inevitable. But hacks can be prevented by frequently updating your website.

Developers patch vulnerabilities as soon as they are discovered, but in order to get the patch, you need to update your themes and plugins. If you have a strong security plugin like MalCare, it will detect vulnerabilities, as well as help you update themes and plugins from the dashboard itself.

Poor user management

If your users all have more access than they require, or their accounts aren’t secured, it can lead to a hack. The best course of action is to follow the principle of least privilege and hand down the access only as needed.

Also, it is important to delete old or inactive user accounts as they can be exploited by hackers to gain access.

Web host issues

While a rare occurrence, your web host could be responsible for a hack on your website. This hack could originate in the cPanel itself or one of the software that your web host uses. When this happens, all the websites on the web host’s servers are vulnerable to hacks.

If you find no other reason for your website getting hacked, look for the recent communication from your web host. Most web hosts usually inform their customers in case any issues arise from their end.

Unsecured communication

If your communication is unsecured, it can be intercepted by hackers or anyone on the same network as you. In order to avoid this, it is important to use SSL on your website.

SSL encrypts the communication to and from your website, so that no data or information falls into the wrong hands.

Why do websites get hacked?

Attackers and malicious actors hack websites for several reasons. But the primary reason that websites get hacked is that every website is valuable. Websites have resources that can be exploited if they are hacked. Even small websites can be used as a part of a botnet or their data can be exploited for phishing scams.

With bots being easy to use, brute force attacks are not even high effort. Hackers have to do very little to try and break into your website, and the payoff is still pretty good. Some hackers also hack websites for confidential information or financial data that can be exploited.

Given that hackers have nearly nothing to lose when they attack your websites, the onus of security falls onto the website admin. It is best to use a security plugin like MalCare to secure your website from any potential attack.

결론

Website security is not a one-time task. You need a security plan that is frequently updated and worked upon. In order to do this, you also need to stay informed on website security.

One of the best ways to secure your website, in the long run, is to use a security plugin like MalCare. MalCare’s firewall protects your website from attacks and alerts you in case it finds anything suspicious on your website.

FAQ

My website is hacked, what should I do?

If you think your website is hacked, scan your website to confirm. Use a deep scanner such as MalCare’s which will scan your entire website and notify you of any malware if detected. If the scanner detects a hack, all you need to do is click the ‘auto-clean’ button and MalCare will take care of the cleanup for you.

What happens if your website is hacked?

A hacked website can have far-ranging consequences, including but not limited to, customer loss, revenue loss, legal issues, data loss, business interruption, loss of brand reputation, loss of customer trust, and plummeting SEO rankings. These consequences can seriously affect the survivability of a business if not addressed in time.

How did my website get hacked?

There are several reasons for a website to be hacked, like:

• Undetected backdoors
• Vulnerabilities
• Weak passwords
• Web host issues
• Unsecured user accounts

Can a hacked website be fixed?

Yes, you can fix your hacked website. Depending on the malware and the extent of the hack, you will need to assess the damage and then take steps to clean it.

Here is how you can repair hacked website:

1. Scan your website with a security plugin
2. Get access to your website if it is suspended
3. Clean up your website with the security plugin
4. Get your website off any blacklists

Repair Your Hacked WordPress Website With MalCare !