Your Website Has Been Hacked. What Do You Do Now?

This article from Wade Harman is a follow-up, of sorts, to the last article of his that we ran. Once again, he discusses cyber crime. This time, the focus is on the steps to take after you’ve been hacked. Sobering but necessary reading, and another in our “Great Articles You may have missed” series.

Take These Steps After Your Website Has Been Hacked

Website security is more important than ever. The increasing number of cyber attacks is a clear sign that proper security measures are needed.

Website security is even more important for small business websites and personal blogs because these are the sites targeted by malicious attacks the most.

Even with the best security measures, however, there is still the possibility of your site getting hacked. When that happens, you have to take the necessary steps to secure your data and get the site up and running as quickly as possible. Here are the steps to take after your website has been hacked.

Secure as Much Data as Possible

The first thing you should do after your website has been hacked is to make a complete copy of the site.

This is useful for two things. First, you can take the site offline as soon as the backup process is complete, preventing the site from infecting visitors or other websites, in particular, sites on the same server.

The second benefit of making a complete copy of the hacked site, is recovery.

You can observe the site more closely in a controlled environment and you can learn more about the hack. And you can learn how to prevent it from happening again in the future. You are also preserving the latest version of the site.

Revert to an Older Backup

If you have been taking backup and security seriously, chances are you have a complete backup from a week ago at the latest.

For those of you who don’t have a backup routine in place, this article serves as a reminder to get one set up for your site immediately. A daily backup or a weekly routine should be enough.

Depending on how often you update your site, a backup that’s a week old or younger is relatively easy to work with. You can get the majority of the site back up in just a couple of hours. The rest can be restored from the complete copy you created earlier.

Dealing with Data Loss

Some hacks and attacks are more malicious than the others, resulting in data loss and catastrophic failures.

There are two ways to handle the situation.

You can choose to replace any broken hardware with new hardware and simply restore the lost data from your backup image.

This is the ideal way to go.

If a backup is not available or you have to recover files from a broken hard drive, then it is best to let a data recovery expert do the hard work for you.

Service providers such as https://www.securedatarecovery.com/ are more than capable of restoring important files directly from the platters inside your broken drive.

Additional Security Measures

Getting the site restored and running is just the first part of the process. The next part is preventing future attacks from happening again.

A hack usually starts with a backdoor. So take the time to scan your server for possible backdoors and security holes.

You also want to review your site’s database and individual files for malicious codes that can be used to perform future attacks. Update your security measures based on your analysis of the attack. You can then return to having a secured, smoothly-operating site in no time.

Over To You

Have you or a company you’ve worked for ever been the subject of a cyber attack? If so, please tell your fellow readers the steps you took? I’m sure I will be far from the only person who would be really interested in reading about your experience. (And I hope it wasn’t too very traumatic).

Wade Harman: Head Honcho at Cornerstone Marketing

My main social media marketing strategy with my blog is to build on a larger fan base by connecting individually with each person. This creates a more targeted clientele base and eventually leads to more sales. Building a site that has integrity is what I’m all about in my social media marketing strategies. This is also known widely as relationship marketing, of which I practice every day with my social strategy. You can tweet me @wadeharman

This article was originally titled “The Steps to Take After Your Website Has Been Hacked” and was published on wadeharman.com and is republished here with permission.

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