What is a website hack?

Website hacking has been on the rounds for quite some time. Though we are cautious while we key in sensitive information over the internet, at times our personal or official information may get tangled with website hackers. So what happens to information with such hackers? How to keep such hackers at bay?

Let us delve into the details!

How to know if your website has been hacked?

In the first place, it is required to discover that your website has been hacked. You may find disorderly things happening in your website. Things might go out of control and you may find a cluttered scenario in your website.

Analyzing deeper:

Unfamiliar content:

The first thing which could strike a chord is irrelevant content on your website. You might find weird content on your website included without your knowledge. There could be addition of unfamiliar content links which could impact the quality of your website and search engine optimization rating.

Unusual website performance:

At some point of time if you find that your website speed has drastically reduced or the average loading time of website pages has increased, it shows that something might be wrong with your website and that you need to be vigilant. This increase in the average loading time refers to the presence of a malware functionality which needs to be checked appropriately.

Foreign plugins:

The look and feel of websites is usually maintained by content management systems which in turn run on plugins. This dependency is an advantage for hackers as they try inserting malicious content files which act as plugins and disrupt the functioning of your website. Website owners need to be aware of such malpractices.

Blacklisted website from Google and other search engines:

Users when trying to access your website may get an alert that they are not viewing genuine content and they may not able to obtain access to the website at all. With your hacked website trying to usher unwanted content on other websites, your website may be completely blacklisted as credential access may also be denied.

Unknown redirects:

Monitoring of website behavior does give deeper insights on hacking possibilities, if any. If you find unexplained behavior of your website like repeated hitting of website links from different IP addresses or unfamiliar access to unknown links, this may be an alert to a website hack.

Disabled website:

Do you find broken code on your website? Do you experience an unexplained reason for your website misbehavior? Broken links, code malfunctioning could also be a pointer to identify hacking attempts which need to be arrested at the right time.

Strange accounts:

It should be a practice to monitor access of application and database periodically. If you find unauthorized users checking into your application, your website maybe at a high risk.

Disgruntled customers:

If you find your customers getting dissatisfied with your website for no known reason or unknown issues cropping up your website and disappointing your customers, it could be due to website hacking

What to do if website has been hacked?

Keeping hackers at bay….

Investigate:

Collect as much of information as possible about the current technical scenario including the code functionality, plugins installed, talk to your team and exchange knowledge for better clarity.

Don’t freak out:

Never overlook the situation or try to ignore it. Work on the possibilities and conclude if your website has been hacked or not.

Contact your hosting provider:

The best person you could rely on to get appropriate information is your hosting provider. He could explore all possibilities to understand the probability of a website hack and also work out an alternative for the same.

Contact support or your web admin:

To better understand upon the intricacies of a possible web hack, your technical support and web admin could help you out to dig deeper and find a solution by shutting off all sources of website hacks.

How can you reduce the risk of a future website hack?

Stay up to date with security trends for your field:

The first step to protect your website from hacking risks is to keep up with security trends in your technical space. Fine tune your website and check for any kind of risks it may be susceptible to.

Use secure passwords:

Account credentials play a vital role on securing your account from hackers. Have a strong password for sensitive accounts rather than an obvious one to protect your information better.

Update your software regularly:

Ensure to keep your system software updated at regular intervals. Outdated software could be at a greater risk of hacking and misuse.

Scan your site often:

Always have a firewall installed and keep scanning your system for malware and viruses. This could prevent unwanted activity from disrupting your system.