You can tell your website has been hacked because of the signs. And if you know what to look for, then you can start cleaning it up!
Sudden Drop in Website’s Traffic
If you’re seeing a sudden drop in traffic, even though your analytics are configured properly, there could be a sign that your WordPress site is being hacked.
A sudden drop in traffic can be caused by different factors, such as changes in internal or external strategies.
It’s possible that malware on your website is redirecting visitors without logging in to specific websites.
One possible reason for the sudden drop in traffic could be that Google’s safe browsing tool shows warnings to users on your website.
If you want to keep your website high in the search results and safe from malware and phishing, then you need your WordPress security to be up to snuff.
Google’s safe browsing tool is the only SEO report you’ll ever need.
Bad links added to your website
Data injection is one of the most common signs of a hacked WordPress site. It’s actually very easy to detect and identify – as a hacker gains access through a backdoor or external IP address they will modify your WordPress files and database.
Some of these hacks just add links to spammy websites. By deleting those links doesn’t ensure that they won’t come back.
In order to get the best possible result for your content, you’ll need to find and fix any backdoors used in it.
Your Website’s Homepage is Defected
One thing that is clear on the homepage is the option to sign up for a newsletter.
As hacking attempts go, most web pages do not get defaced. That’s why it’s important to keep your website safe from hackers by installing proper security measures and staying alert.
There are hackers who try to deface website’s homepage in order to announce that they’ve hacked into your business. They usually replace your homepage with their own message, either to extort money from you or further spread their malicious messages and cause further damage to your site.
You are unable to login into WordPress
Sometimes hackers can gain access to your WordPress site and delete your admin information. If you’re suddenly unable to login, it might be best to make sure hackers haven’t deleted your admin account.
The way that the account is set up, it would not be possible to access the login page to reset your password.
First off, you need to figure out how the hackers got into your website. If you’re using phpMyAdmin, you’ll want to disable it and use ftp instead because that solution allows for manual changes and other site specific tasks that can help patch holes in security.
Suspicious user accounts in WordPress
The best way to manage your spammers is to use a spam management system. It will block registrations from people who are not whitelisted and allow you to find, block and delete the spam.
If you’re unable to identify when a new user account is created in WordPress, then your site could be compromised.
The suspicious user account is usually an administrator user and can’t be deleted from your WordPress admin area.
Unknown Files and Script on your server
If you have the Sucuri plugin installed, it will alert you anytime it finds a new file or script on your site. The best thing to do is employ one of the methods below in order to avoid falling into this common trap!
To find the files, you can use an FTP client program to connect to your WordPress site.
These files tend to be named similar to those created by WordPress, making them hard to find. However, you can recognize these files with a bit of patience and auditing the directory structure. If you’re deleting these files, they won’t come back.
Your website is often slow or irresponsible
As a business owner, it’s very important to protect your website from random denial of service or DDoS attacks. These particular types of attacks use hacked computers and servers from all over the world using fake IP addresses. It can put your entire business at risk so make sure to have a defense in place.
Other times, they’re trying to get you hacked into your website. There really is no rhyme or reason for why they would do this; the only constant is that it’s wrong.
If your website is down or unresponsive, you can use our server logs to see which IP addresses are making too many requests. You may also block them by IP if necessary.
WordPress is a great site, but when it comes to performance, there may be some plugins you’re installing that slow things down. Check out our guide for easy ways to boost WordPress speed and performance.
Unusual activities in server logs
Server logs are text files kept on the server that keep record of all activities occurring, as well as all your internet traffic.
You’ll be able to access your statistics from your WordPress hosting account’s cPanel dashboard.
The server logs WordPress automatically collects can provide you with insights into what’s going on when your website is under attack.
You can use our range of tools to block people who you have suspicions about. You’ll get the IP addresses used to access your site, so it’s simple to remove those that are suspicious.
Server errors are indications that something may be wrong with your website. These include things like crashes and unresponsiveness. Moving forward, we’ll let you know on the front end so that you can fix it before users see a problem themselves.
