What to Do If Your Website Has Been Hacked
If you believe your website has been hacked or compromised, it is important to act quickly. A hacked website can display unwanted content, redirect visitors, send spam, contain malware or stop working completely.
Signs your website may have been hacked
Your website may have been compromised if:
- Your website redirects visitors to another website
- Google or your browser shows a malware or security warning
- Unknown administrator users have appeared
- New files or folders have appeared in your hosting account
- Your website is sending spam emails
- Your website has been suspended for abuse or malware
- Search results show strange pages under your domain name
- Your website content has changed without your knowledge
What you should do first
- Do not delete random files unless you are sure what they are.
- Change your WordPress administrator password.
- Change your cPanel password.
- Change any FTP or email passwords linked to the website.
- Make a note of when you first noticed the issue.
- Raise a support ticket with Dynamic Servers Limited.
Important: If your website has been hacked, simply changing passwords may not fully resolve the issue. Malicious files or code may still be present in the website.
What information should I send to support?
When raising a support ticket, please include:
- Your domain name
- What issue you are seeing
- When you first noticed the issue
- Any warning messages shown by Google, browsers or security tools
- Any recent changes made to the website
- Whether you have recently installed or updated any plugins, themes or software
- Any screenshots that may help us understand the issue
Can the website be restored from backup?
In some cases, restoring from a clean backup may be the best option. However, this depends on when the website was compromised and whether a clean backup is available.
Restoring a backup without fixing the original cause of the compromise may result in the website being hacked again.
How can I prevent it happening again?
After the issue has been resolved, we recommend the following steps:
- Keep WordPress, plugins and themes updated
- Remove unused plugins and themes
- Use strong, unique passwords
- Enable two-factor authentication where available
- Only install plugins, themes and software from trusted sources
- Review administrator users regularly
- Remove any users who no longer need access
Need urgent help?
If your website has been hacked, compromised or suspended, please raise a support ticket with Dynamic Servers Limited as soon as possible. Our team will review the issue and advise on the next steps.
