Website hacking is often times a
stealthy affair. There are many websites in the
world today that are compromised but the owners do not know about it. it is
estimated that 18.5 million, or 1% of all websites are hacked at any given
moment. This is so because of the increased usage of stealthy technology to
take over websites by hackers. If your website is hacked and you have no idea,
you can suffer for a long time without knowing what the problem is. Website attackers tend to try to extend the
period of an attack as long as possible so that they can continue to benefit
from your work without your knowledge. In order to know whether your website is
hacked or not, you need to check a few things. Let us look at some issues that
you need to look at to know about the safety of your website.
When it comes to checking your site for vulnerabilities,
there are a number of things that you must put in your checklist. Some of the
things that you should ensure you have covered include:
- Scanning the website with an antivirus program
- Manually checking the files on the website
The first step is quite easy as you
can download a good scanning program from the web. Scanning through your site can help you identify
the viruses, links, XSS scripts and other issues that might be prevalent in the
site. Various security tools provided by companies like Google and WordPress are a good place to start. Manually
checking the files on your website is also a good idea. You should, however,
leave this work to a professional if you have no experience in code. According to
HostInspection, checking the website files manually should be
done regularly
How
to clean your site
After
going through a thorough checking process, the next step is to do the
cleaning. Cleaning is necessary to remove active threats or those that have
the potential to be security threats. When preparing to do the cleaning, you
should ensure that all your files are backed up. The cleaning process can
sometimes result in the loss of data especially if some files are corrupted.
Website cleaning involves removing all suspicious codes, links, and files. If
you can manually identify these security flaws, you can remove them manually
and replace them with a clean copy.
Cleaning should also involve the use
of tools that are specifically designed to make deletions and modifications.
After you have successfully cleaned your website, you should take a further
step of changing all your secure login information. All the previous passwords
used to access the site, cPanel, WordPress platform and other areas of the site
should be changed. Doing this is important as it helps prevent further attacks
from the same sources. You should also ensure that there are no scheduled jobs
from the server after the cleanup process. Cron jobs often end up reinfecting a newly
cleaned website.
Keeping
the website safe from future threats
The security of your website also
involves protection from future attacks.
There are quite a number of things you can do to this end. The first thing to
do is to keep a closer eye on your website. You should schedule a regular
monitoring process where you analyze the various aspects of the site for their
safety. We can use programs like Google Analytics to see the kind of traffic you are receiving from the web. You
should also keep a record of the kind of traffic sources and SPAM that might
come with certain traffic. Any changes in regard to the type of traffic you
receive, the sources of the traffic and the user interaction should help you
identify when there is an attack.
Another issue you must consider is
using a proactive security approach. Today, over 90% of companies are prioritizing proactive
security. Most website owners tend to react only when an attack has happened.
This is not the way to go in the modern day. You should always be ahead of the
hackers in terms of providing security. Using strong passwords, keeping
unnecessary parties from accessing the administrative platforms and keeping all
junk out of your site are some simple proactive steps to take. Using the right
kind of security tools and avoiding unsafe themes can
also help boost security. In overall, being at the forefront of managing the security
aspect will help you keep your site safe at all times
No comments:
Post a Comment