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My website was hacked!
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My website was hacked!

Being an admin now for 9+ years, the best advice I can give is to find out how it was hacked, fix the problem reload your site from your backup (You are making backups correct?) and move on.

Realistically if you try and track him/her down or send an abusive email to the address you are just feeding what the "script kiddy" wants, 'Attention!'.

From past experience even if you find the individual, and press charges (If he/she is in your own country of course) they will get a mischief charge at most, which means 'Nothing'. DO NOT feed their ego, or give them a reason to make your life more miserable. By giving them a reason, the results might be to take it to the next level (DDOS, Domain Name hijack, etc...).

Also please be aware that many of the current website hacks are also the result of infections on the computer(s) used for FTP access. The credentials are captured and used to access the site and add/modify files.


What can you do?

1. Change your password!

- Use passwords that are at least 12 or more characters in length.
- Use symbols, numbers, upper and lower case characters in your passwords
- Avoid DICTIONARY words!!!
- Change your password frequently (e.g. monthly as a minimum)

2. Update your applications!

- If you are using scripts such as Joomla, WordPress, phpBB, etc. make sure you are using the latest version. Have the latest patches. Go to the developers website and/or forum and see if you can find helpful hints to help secure your site or ask them for assistance.
- We at Mabuhay Hosting are NOT the developers and have no control over these 3rd party applications.

3. Backups!

- Always keep a fresh adequate backup of your website.
- Yes we do backup all accounts, however; we can not confirm the intergrity of the backup unless we are tasked to do a restore. That is why you should keep a clean copy, just in case our backup is corrupt.

4. Use multiple anti-malware/anti-trojan software!

- Although the cause of your issue may be different, you should consider scanning the computer(s) used for administrative access to the web site. Use multiple anti-malware / anti-trojan type products that you don’t already use. After confirming that your computer(s) is/are clean and secure, change all passwords. It has been suggested that you do not store user names and passwords in the FTP client.


Bottomline:

- There is nobody that is going to pursue a simple defacement. There are way bigger fish to fry, and limited resources. There are tons of hacking groups, so if you don't even know for sure who it was you're spinning your wheels. It's a harsh fact; You can try and complain, but the time would be better spent on preventing it from happening again. Follow the steps mentioned above, granted these steps will not guarantee to prevent defacement from happening again, but it sures helps.