How Can I Tell If I Have Been Hacked?
Sometimes it is easy to know that you have been subjected to a hack or infected with malware, other times it is not so obvious. You may encounter one or more of the issues below.
1. You have a different homepage
Some hackers tend to hack websites to attend notoriety. They generally change your website’s homepage to something different. Mostly, they change the homepage into a funny meme or leave their calling card stating “hacked by” to gain attention. If you have a different homepage than your normal homepage, your website might be hacked.
2. Drop in the website’s performance
Generally, when your website experiences slowdown some malicious script or brute force might be attacking your website’s server. Your website might feel sluggish all of a sudden. And if you experience a sudden slowdown on your system; you might be hacked.
3. Presence of spam pop-up ads
Hackers tend to divert your website traffic into malicious website’s traffic. You know your website is compromised when visitors of your website see numerous spam pop-ups redirecting them into another website.
4. Decrease in website traffic
Website traffic is a crucial aspect of generating attention to your WordPress site. A sudden decrease might reek of trouble. Sometimes malicious script redirects users from your website and reduces traffic on the site. Even sometimes, Google might be blacklisting your WordPress site thinking of it as a malicious site due to malicious scripts left by hackers.
5. Changes in files
Files changes are an indication that your website has been hacked. If any file on your WordPress site has been added, changed, or removed; it indicates that your WordPress site’s security has been compromised. You can prevent this by inserting a notification system that notifies you when files on your website change.
6. New admin on the website
Hackers tend to create a new admin user for your website if they have compromised a user administrator account. They try to get administration privileges while attacking your website. After getting these privileges, they damage your WordPress website.
7. Removal of admin users
Hackers when they gain access to your site tend to remove all other administrative users of the website. They look to gain complete control of your website. And if you are unable to access your website; it might be a sign that your website has been hacked.
Hackers might destroy your website. At all costs, avoid having your WordPress website destroyed; get a WordPress Backup plugin and be sure to have on-site and off-site backups and WordPress Security software such as iThemes. Get UpdraftPlus and iThemes Security Pro right here.
What Can I Do?
If you have a backup, it is worth restoring that and fixing the way in which they gained access, this may be a compromised password, an out-of-date plugin or theme, or an exploit that is not yet known. In order to help with this, you can install WordFence and run a deep scan. This will highlight any issues and give you an idea of what to do to fix them.