When searching for a fantastic website, security is typically the last thing on your mind. Impressive designs, amazing JavaScript effects, and interactive on-page features are what prospective website owners are searching for.But in the ten years that I have been overseeing hundreds of website designs, I have not once been asked, "What about security?"
Before you even think about the jQuery slider's sliding effect, as a website owner, you should think about your website's online security. Future developments will see a greater emphasis on security due to the proliferation of third-party plugins, themes, and frameworks.
Over the past six months, we have observed an increasing number of compromised websites that we have been asked to assist in fixing. The reasons for these situations typically have a similar pattern:
This article aims to educate website owners on the following topics: why websites get hacked, how to stop a website from being hacked, what to do if your website is hacked, and how to prevent a website from being hacked in the first place. It should be noted that the individuals and programs who compromise your website are typically very evasive. Frequently, this means that:
It's true that compromised websites almost never have a large notice saying, "This site has been hacked lolz," slapped across their pages. typically, a dangerous piece of code operates in the background and goes unnoticed until it is detected by Google's malware check or by a client called "Norton online security." By then, it is typically too late.
Therefore, in the case of hacked websites, prevention and routine maintenance are just as crucial as the cure.In light of that:
The first thing you should know is that website hacking by real people is extremely uncommon. Typically, a programmer with too much time on their hands will create a crawler to hack your website. As stated on the tin, the crawler searches webpages for certain vulnerabilities. The crawler will first detect, for example, outdated WordPress websites; if your website satisfies this requirement, it will be put to a "short-list." A second crawler will then go over that "short-list," trying a variety of unconventional vulnerabilities and exploits. If you're not using secure hosting and are using outdated software, it will only be a matter of time before a successful.
They want access to users' private information stored in your database. Credit card numbers and social security numbers are only two examples of the types of data that are stolen in this way and wind up on illicit trading sites where thieves purchase and sell vast amounts of personal information. If you manage an e-commerce website, you should pay extra attention to website security.
They want to use your website to drive traffic to other websites you know, the ones that sell things like performance-enhancing drugs in order to promote another business or product online. Their goal in doing this is to receive a commission on sales of their goods. They may use this more deviously at times, frequently promoting you items associated with the compromised website.
Black hat SEO at its best they aim to help another website's SEO by building links to it from yours. This will raise the website's Google rating.
All they want is to cause you or your company inconvenience for their own selfish gain. That's all. This won't usually be the case though.
A common incident is hacking. Trust someone who has had to keep an eye on server logs: people are continuously looking for weaknesses in your website.
Excellent query. Even when they've gotten access, it might be difficult to figure this out.
Amongst the causes are:
You may be using outdated plugins or themes, or the content management system on your website is outdated. Updates are essential if you wish to stay safe from an attack.
This is so that updates can protect your website against known vulnerabilities and unsafe patches seen in earlier versions. You will have a plethora of publicly-known security flaws on your website if you stick with the present software and don't update it.
Because of this, bad hackers and bots will find your site easily when they are looking for websites with these exploitable problems still present.
What's the best course of action?
First of all, relax!
To get your website back up and running, create a plan and follow it. Still, you have to move quickly. If you proceed slowly, Google may take longer to recognise the problems with your website and remove it from its listings (blacklisting).
Google will overlay your website with a notice alerting users to the possibility of dangerous or harmful content, as well as the possibility that your site has been compromised. Avoiding this is important since it may cause visitors to lose trust in your website or maybe infect themselves with malware or a virus.
Assuming you own a website, you should contact your website developer as soon as possible, or your website host if they are not accessible. Explain the problem in as much detail as you can.
Do you have access to the CMS (such as WordPress)? If you do, log in and try installing the maintenance page plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-maintenance-mode/.
This will protect your website's users from dangerous code, as well as prevent Google from issuing warnings to your site and buying time.
You should now carefully examine and scan your local environment if you have access to your website through a content management system (CMS). This might have been the attack's origin. The problem may have arisen if malware was present on your desktop or notepad or elsewhere in your local environment. It's crucial that you give your computer a full check. Since malicious viruses might evade detection by antivirus software, it's a good idea to try an alternate...
Hopefully, you can find the impacted files by checking the FTP and comparing the most recent modification dates. Before moving any files over FTP and losing the latest updated date, do this first and make a note.
Remove the code from the active environment and post a page for maintenance. This maintenance page will ensure that users won't see an error or 404 code when they search for your website, and ideally, they will return soon as your site will need to be pulled down from the live environment.
Never revert to a backup and relaunch the website. While it is perfectly acceptable to utilize a backup for a version of the website that is not infected, doing so will cause the crawler to re-infect the website, generally within a few hours. This is only buying time until the vulnerability that initially made it possible for your website to be hacked is used again; it does not address the problem.
Look through the website's files for dangerous coding techniques like Base64, which is used to conceal codes in files. Base64 encrypts data so that it seems to be unintelligible to the untrained eye. Use a base64 decoding script, if you can, to determine what kind of code you're working with.
You're probably working with a JavaScript/jQuery frame injector, so pay close attention to the headers and footers in particular.
Verify the file permissions. Your permissions will vary depending on your PHP handler and server configuration, but for the time being, ensure sure nothing is set to 777.
In case you are using WordPress, make sure you update your random, unpredictable, encrypted passwords by changing your secret keys in your WP config file.
Finally, update all themes, plugins, and the CMS itself completely. After that, make sure everything is functioning properly by doing a comprehensive check.
