Just a few years ago WordPress was considered as a blogging platform. But today, it’s used for all kinds of websites.
In 2020, websites are an absolute necessity, as no business can go on without one.
With millions of websites being created every day, there is more room for malicious attacks. Especially if you do not have much experience in the field.
In order to ensure your website is secured, you need to often check your website as well as perform security scans. Here are some of the few warning signs that your website has been hacked.
You cannot login
This is one of the most common signs, signaling that your website has been attacked. There are cases in which you seem to forget your password, but if you are sure it’s the correct one and you still cannot access your website, it’s most likely you have been hacked. A lot of hackers go to the extent of deleting your account entirely.
You receive alerts from browsers
A lot of browsers will give you a warning when an imminent attack is on the way. You will see pop-ups such as “phishing attack ahead”, indicating your website has a malware. This malware can even make people visiting your website to take action, making things even worse. This could even affect your website traffic, infecting computers of all visitors.
Slow or unresponsive website
There is no website which is immune to attacks. Hackers usually sent requests to your server and this way gaining access to your website with the help of fake servers, IPs, and hacked computers. This can cause a severe slowdown of your website, causing it to be unresponsive or unavailable.
To avoid this from happening, check your servers regularly, looking to IPs with too many requests and remove them. Note, that the slowing of your website may be caused because of network interruptions.
Bouncing emails
A serious problem is emails bouncing back. This can happen, when a hacker installs scripts on your website and sents emails using your IP address. Users will then report them as spam and your website gets blocked. Check in with your customers and make sure they receive your emails.
Unexpected flow
A lot of websites turn off new registrations. However if you still receive new users, this means you have been hacked. Make sure to install a secure firewall which is difficult to pass. Also, update your website making it hard for hackers to bypass the firewall.
Drop in traffic
If you have recently noticed a severe drop in traffic, there is a big chance that your website was hacked. Malware on your website will redirect users to the hackers’ site, which will reduce your traffic flow. Make sure to track visitors regularly, and check if there is any drop in website traffic.
Strange search results
Have you noticed that your website displays the wrong meta or title description? This is an undeniable sign that your website is under threat. Hackers insert malware into your website and compromise how search engines will see it.
Information from your customers
Your customers get a better view of your website than you do. They may notice that your website has been hacked and notify you immediately. If you do receive such a notice, take action, such as a hack test to verify the integrity of the information.
The sooner you take action, the better for you.
How to protect your website?
There are several ways you could use to protect your website from hackers.
Code scanner
Hackers can be very smart and hide infections in a place you will never look. In this case you can use a source code scanner in order to detect the hack. Perform a manual scan by using a code scanner, which will locate and remove the hack immediately. The scanner can also be helpful in identifying patterns that match the malware code.
Check your password
We all understand the importance of using passwords. Often, however, users tend to use very weak passwords.
Make sure to store your website’s password in an encrypted value, making it difficult even for the best hackers to crack it.
Try a monitoring service
This type of service will inform you of downtime and all the times your website changes then the standard percentage. There should not be too many changes on your page, only minor ones such as copyright year or date. A good monitoring service should be able to do it from different locations. If you do this, your success rate will improve.
Conclusion
Being hacked is extremely frustrating, as it can severely cripple your business. It can also lead to losing customers. Consult with companies and individuals who offer WordPress services. Contact our Fixed team and we will be led to ensure the protection of your website.
