Not knowing will get to you. After all, people need constant assurance that their site is secure. There’s information to protect and email addresses to collect for your business.
Fixing a hack is not easy. Prevention is always the best measure. But you don’t want to find out too late if you’ve been hacked! If you’ve got an inkling that your site’s security may have been compromised, follow these clues to find out.
- Google offers several tools to find out if you’ve been hacked.
- You are likely to receive notifications from service providers if you’ve been hacked.
- You will need to do a bit of research to find out what has happened and how to fix it.
Check the Google Search Console
Look under “Security Issues” within this console.
The report will tell you about virtually any and every way your site could have been hacked, so always check this one first. You will find out whether someone has injected code, used a phishing scam on you, or something similar.
Hacking can be very sophisticated these days. Be sure to look into every detail when you check your Google console.
This is where you will start once you call a professional for help if you’ve been hacked. Keep your report handy. It’s a great diagnostics sheet.
Another Google Tool
Google’s Safe Browsing tool is another way Google offers help diagnosing your site.
To use this tool, enter your website URL in Google’s Transparency Report.
That’s it! This is one of the safest and easiest ways to check the safety of your website, so it’s a favorite with webmasters. You can bounce back and forth between this site and the tools on your Google Search Console as you work to fix any problems.
Your Notifications
If you’ve been hacked, it’s possible that you will get notifications from hosting providers, service providers, your internet browser, and more. You might get a pop-up from your internet browser, emails from your hosting provider, or notifications from someone else that services your website.
Occasionally, people who use your site may tell that it’s hacked. You can also use a malware scanner on your site to check on it more frequently.
Make sure you check your notifications often to stay up-to-date on the status of your site.
Search Results
Did you know that there is a way to check for the security of a site using Google’s search results?
Go to the search engine, then carefully type in “site: domainname.com.”
Make sure you spell everything exactly!
Under the first few search results, there should be a notification stating if the site has been hacked.
Website Files
Luckily, there is another surefire way to check for hacking on your website if you are a developer. You can also just have your developer look at the files for you if you don’t read code.
Check files like your .php file or the .htaccess file to look for additional code that may have found its way onto your site.
The Hacked Sites Troubleshooter
Google comes to the rescue again with this tool. This is the tool you want if you are trying to find all the content that has been hacked or are trying to follow up on issues from a hack.
This tool is easy to use and will show you all the hacked content.
Fixing a Hacked Website
You can fix a hacked website in-house or with an outside company. You may find that the problem is too extensive for you to tackle on your own. Don’t be afraid to call someone for help if you think you can’t get the problem resolved in-house. It’s important that the job is done right.
Always remember to alert your customers right away if your site has been hacked.
Overall, it’s a good idea to check your site for hacking often. If you routinely check your site, going through the files with a developer is probably the most reassuring way to check everything because it doesn’t put your site at risk and is meticulous.
But many people use Google Search Console as their go-to resource to check for hacking.
Whatever your maintenance routine implies, make sure you have a plan in place for if you are hacked. Note that you will need specific plans depending on the extent and type of the hacking.
Each case is different, and you may need to take some legal action if you are able to find out who hacked you.