8 Signs That Your Website Has Been Hacked
There are 1,840,256,440 websites in the world. As I write this article here on Linkedin more websites are coming live every second. Millions of people interact with dozens of websites every day to shop, communicate, transact, learn, entertain, etc. Like you are doing right now.
It’s undeniable to say that websites play a key role in the functioning of our life nowadays. And from a business owner’s perspective, websites have become pivotal because that’s where their customers are - online. If you are an e-business owner you already know that.
But, do you know over 30,000 websites are hacked every day? Further, a study suggests that most data breaches remain hidden for as long as 192 days! That is enough time for hackers to retrieve whatever there is to retrieve and infect whatever there is to infect on your website.
For most netizens, the advancement in the digital space has been so blazingly-fast that the talk about risks and security of cyberspace got omitted altogether. Most are unaware of the basic symptoms or repercussions of a website hack. But, they have been catching up. Slowly, but for sure.
I'm writing here to address these things and to help you identify if your website has been hacked.
I have compiled a list of the 8 most common symptoms of a hack so that you are able to spot a hack when you see one next.
Symptoms of a hack:
- Your website is redirecting to spammy sites
Redirection hacks are the most common hacks right now. When your website URL (or one of your web pages) takes you to a spammy or malicious domain/site, it is called a “redirection hack”. That's one of the most obvious signs that your website is infected.
Redirection hacks have become a lot sophisticated over the years. Now, hackers can infect your website in a way that only your customers are redirected and you’d see your website working perfectly fine. This is one of the cleverest tricks used by hackers to hide the hack from the website owner. Then, there are redirection cases in which only the people accessing your website from a certain browser will be redirected.
Then, we have also seen cases where chain redirections happen. So you’d be redirected a couple of times before landing on the desired spammy domain. If your website is redirecting to some other domain, it is a clear sign that you’ve been hacked.
2. ‘The site ahead contains malware’ warning appears
Google is one of the most popular and strict search engines out there. When it comes to security, Google knows no subtlety. An ugly red screen with a warning message ‘This site ahead contains malware’ will be stuck to your website to discourage visitors from clicking on your website URL. This is called the Google blacklist.
Google has algorithms in place to detect malicious content on a website. When it does find such a website - either hacked or hosting potentially malicious content - it blacklists them with a warning message like the one shown in the picture below.
Now, This site ahead contains malware is just one of the many warning messages that Google uses. There are several others such as ‘Deceptive site ahead’, ‘The site has been reported unsafe’, ‘This site may be hacked’, etc.
If you notice a similar warning on your website, you must act quickly. The longer the warning remains on your website, the more damage it is going to cause. You may lose all your SERP rankings and SEO efforts; not to mention customers and revenue too.
3. Ads & pop-ups start appearing on your Website
Monetary benefits are one of the biggest motives of hackers and that is what spammy ads provide them. If you/your visitors start seeing malicious ads or pop-ups on your website, it is possible that a malware script has been injected into your website.
Here’s an example of this type of hack: https://www.getastra.com/blog/911/fix-monit-php-monetization-hack/
4. Google Search Console sends a message saying ‘your website is hacked or has malware’
Another sign that your website is hacked, comes from your website’s Google search console. Google does its share in letting you know about the hack as soon as it finds out. In the Google search console’s ‘Security Tab’ you’ll find a message saying your website is hacked or has malware. You may also receive an email about the same.
So if you have received any message from Google saying your website is hacked, it is quite a telltale sign that you’ve been hacked.
5. Your hosting provider suspends your website
Hosting companies are no less strict than search engines. They suspend accounts and disable websites if they find malware on a website. This step is necessary to protect other websites on the server, especially if it is a shared hosting.
Now, hosting providers also disable accounts for various other reasons like policy violation, payment failure, server overuse and so on. If your account is suspended by your host, you need to get in touch with them and find out the reason behind the suspension and act accordingly.
That said, most frequently hosting companies take a website down because of flagged malware in it. Hence, this makes for a potential sign that your website has been hacked.
6. Outbound ports 80, 443, 587 and 465 for your account are blocked
In some cases, the hosting company may limit resources to your website instead of completely disabling it. Known hosting providers such as GoDaddy, HostGator & BigRock have automated systems to block connections to outbound ports like 80, 443, 587 and 465 for your account. Such security measures are put in place to contain the malware infection and prevent spam from the servers.
Once the malicious files have been quarantined from the server and your website passes the automated Virus Scanner, you can request these ports to be unblocked.
7. Customers complain that their credit cards are hacked
If you get multiple complaints from customers saying their credit cards have been hacked, it may be hinting at a credit card hack on your website. Unfortunately, card skimming, fake payment scripts, fake checkout forms are a reality today. Especially for the e-commerce industry. Financial data is sold for thousands of dollars on the dark web. Thus, hackers are naturally after websites that would get them such data.
8. Website becomes very slow and throws error
Another sign that your website has been hacked is when your website becomes abnormally slow or inaccessible to your visitors. It may show error messages like 503 servers unavailable. Or you start receiving unusual server overload warnings from your hosting provider. This may be a hint that someone has been lurking on your server resources. Also, we know for a fact that hackers tend to use a hacked website’s resources to propagate their malicious campaign. A website crashing or becoming extremely slow hence, makes for an overt sign of a hacker attack.
There are other signs as well. But signs are signs, you can never be absolutely sure. To avoid guesswork, use a malware scanner to check if you’re hacked or not. As we progress into the digital era, cybersecurity software and tricks are also getting finer. Security solutions, now, can detect patterns of attacks on your website and block them in advance. Thus, investing in a good security solution is the best thing you can do for your business.
If you want to discuss anything before you actually implement a security solution, feel free to reach out to me & I'd be happy to help :)