So, it looks like one of my servers has been compromised. All of my websites – porn and otherwise have been hacked.
How Have My Websites Been Affected?
There are a number of things that can happen if your website is hacked. It all depends on the motivation of the hacker.
- Loss of data – Your hacker might be especially spiteful and if they have the right access to your system they might delete all of your data!! That means all posts, adult videos, links etc.
- “Hacked by” messages – This is the “best” kind of hack. In some situations a hacker may just put up a message saying “This site has been hacked by the postman.” This hack basically says, I have a security hole and I better fix it before they do some real damage. It’s like a warning.
- Malware Infection – If you’re doing any type of search engine optimization or have any volume of visitors coming to your site this is bad news! This means that the hacker has installed and disguised scripts on your site that will download malware on to the visitors computer. This hack get’s you blocked by the search engines and browsers and basically shuts you down for outside traffic. I got hit with this one.
The malware hack and others can be difficult to get rid of. In my case even if I deleted the malicious code from my pages it would come back.
How do I fix a Hacked Website
This depends on your hack, but in every case the best solution is to restore the entire site from backup. In my case, I noticed the hack too late and my backups had already become infected. So I’m busy deleting and recreating EVERYTHING.
This means that you have to keep a backup of course. You can set this up in your control panel. For directions on how to do this check out this link:
http://www.cirtexhosting.com/tutorials/x3/cpanel-x3-backup.html
