Hacked Website

Unfortunately the hacking of websites is on the increase and the poor webmaster has to try and keep up with and fix the problems this creates.

I thought I would put up this lens as a starting point for information about hacking in the hope that it will help you understand what is happening and why. I intend to start from the very basics as everyone has to start somewhere. As I add new information and resources I will add the links at the bottom of the page, so check back often for new information.

What are the symptoms?

• You go to your home page and it redirects you to another website.
  
• Your website has pages you don't recognise.
  
• Odd graphics on pages you don't recognise. This one can be hard to spot if you have things like adsense running, which will occasionally show images, but look for them on parts of the page you don't have the code.

How does it effect you?

• Your traffic goes down as visitors perceive your site as being malicious.
  
• Google spots the problem and flags your site on its search pages.
  
• You lose revenue.
  
• You spend time trying to fix the problem.
  
• Your host may disable your site and ban you if they think it is you.

Why do they do it?

People hack websites for several reasons.

• Create a backlink to their own site and therefore raise their ranking.
  
• Redirect traffic to their own site and hence gain traffic.
  
• Redirect to an affiliate link in the hopes of making a sale.
  
• Redirect to a website that pays for referrals.
  
• Capture data about your customers/products.
  
• Because they can.

What are some of the things you can you do?

• Ensure you have a good clean backup.
  
• Ensure none of your files are world writeable.
  
• Ensure none of your top level directories are world writeable.
  
• Check your website on a regular basis.
  
• Change your ftp password on a regular basis.
  
• Update any software you use to ensure you have the latest security patches. You will probably be reliant on your hosting service for this.
  
• Subscribe to some security forums so you can keep ahead of known problems.
  
• If you can use your hosts control panel to change/upload files rather than ftp. Many hacking attempts are done by harvesting ftp passwords when you use ftp to login.
  
• Ensure you are running decent Anti Virus software and it is updated.

For some more information on the .htacces hack please visit this Page

If you are interested in making money online, then Newblogger has plenty of information you get you started.