Is It Hacked?

Warning: If you suspect your website has been compromised, act quickly but calmly. many successful recoveries start with clear, methodical detection followed by containment and restoration.

Understand: A website compromise can look like many things, from overt defacement and spam injection to subtle data exfiltration or hidden cryptocurrency miners. this guide walks through seven practical checks you can run right away to assess whether your site has been hacked and what to do next.

Why it matters: The real cost of an undetected compromise

Consider: A hacked website is more than an embarrassing banner or a few spam links. it risks customer data, search engine reputation, email deliverability, and your hosting relationship. attackers can embed backdoors that let them come back later, use your site to phish visitors, or add code that mines cryptocurrency and exhausts resources.

Remember: The longer a compromise remains undetected, the higher the chance of permanent damage, lost backups, leaked credentials, or downstream harm to users. early detection sharply reduces cleanup time and cost.

Check 1: Google search console and "security issues"

Check: If you haven't already, register your site with google search console (gsc) and confirm ownership. gsc includes a "security issues" panel that reports malware, social engineering, and hacked content detected by google's crawlers.

Tip: gsc often provides example URLs and infected snippets. even if the report is sparse, treat a security alert as high priority, google will sometimes suppress search listings and show warnings to users before you notice traffic drops.

How to use it

Action: Open search console ? security & manual actions ? security issues. follow the remediation links, then request a review after you clean the site.

Check 2: Google safe browsing & third-party site reputation checks

Verify: Google safe browsing maintains a blocklist used by browsers. several public tools let you query whether your domain appears in that database; if your domain is listed, visitors will see red warnings in chrome, firefox, and safari.

Also: Use multiple reputation tools (for example, site scanners, "isitdown" pages, or web malware checkers) because each scanner has slightly different signatures and heuristics. a clean result on one scanner doesn't guarantee safety, use a small battery of checks.

Check 3: Visible site behavior, defacement, redirects, and odd UI

Look: Walk through your site as a new visitor would, using an incognito window or a machine that doesn't have admin cookies. look for unexpected banners, popups, forced downloads, or content that doesn't belong to you.

Spot: Common visual signs include homepage defacement, ads you didn't place, login pages that ask for extra credentials, and pages that redirect to unknown domains. some attackers cloak their content, serving malicious pages to real visitors but not to you, so test using a fresh browser session and test from different networks.

Check 4: Domain listings, search results and reputation warnings

Search: Query your brand and domain on google (and other search engines) and inspect the snippets. google sometimes inserts "this site may be hacked" or "this site may harm your computer" flags directly into search results.

Also: Check email from your hosting provider. many hosts automatically scan and will email when they find infections or abnormal outgoing mail volume. do not ignore these emails, they may be your earliest notice.

Check 5: Inspect files, configuration and recent modifications

Access: If you have ftp/sftp or ssh access, inspect your webroot (and uploads folders) for recently modified files, unknown php or js files, and files with suspicious names (long random filenames, php files in image directories, etc.).

Look for: modified .htaccess or nginx/apache config files that add redirects, rewrite rules, or mysterious proxying. attackers commonly alter these to hide payloads, redirect traffic, or inject code.

• Search for obfuscated code patterns like base64_decode(, eval(, or long runs of hex characters;
• Check for files with world-write permissions or files created by unknown users;
• Compare your site to a clean backup to spot unexpected changes.

Note: Some compromises hide inside the database (for example, injected scripts in posts), export and search your database for suspicious strings too.

Check 6: Logs, traffic anomalies and outbound connections

Review: Server access logs and application logs for strange activity. look for large numbers of requests to a single endpoint, repeated login attempts, requests with odd query strings, or spikes in 500 errors.

Check: Analytics for traffic spikes or steep drops, unusual referral sources, or pages receiving unexpected traffic. outbound network connections from your server to unknown endpoints can indicate a backdoor phoning home.

• Notice repeated POST requests to admin login pages from one IP, possible brute force attempts;
• See outbound connections to unknown remote domains on nonstandard ports, investigate immediately;
• Observe sudden CPU or memory spikes on the host, could be a crypto miner or DDoS component.

Check 7: Use security scanners, plugins and professional services

Scan: Run multiple scanners, cms plugins, cloud-based site malware scanners, and command-line tools. examples include malwarescanners, cms-specific security plugins, and online reputation scanners. these tools can detect known malware signatures, injected scripts, and vulnerable components.

Consider: A professional security audit or penetration test for critical sites. automated tools help a lot, but experienced human analysts find logic flaws, chained vulnerabilities, and stealthy backdoors that scanners can miss.

Recommended tooling approach

Combine: use both passive monitoring (logs, analytics, reputation checks) and active scanning (malware scanners, vulnerability scanners). schedule regular scans and integrate alerts into your workflow so you can act as soon as something appears.

How to prioritize and triage what you find

Prioritize: not every oddity means a catastrophic breach. follow a triage flow: determine scope (one page vs entire site), identify impact (data exposed? credentials leaked?), and contain the issue (take site offline or enable maintenance mode if needed).

Quick steps:

• If customer data is at risk, notify your incident response or legal team;
• Change credentials for all admin accounts and database users;
• Isolate the affected server or container to prevent lateral movement;
• Take a forensic snapshot (copy logs, preserve timestamps) before making destructive changes;
• If you have a clean recent backup, consider restoration as the fastest path to recovery.

What to do after you confirm a compromise

Act: Once you confirm a compromise, move from detection to remediation. below is a straightforward playbook you can adapt.

1. Contain, switch the site to maintenance mode or take it offline if malicious activity is ongoing.
2. Preserve, take a full backup of the compromised site for forensics before wiping anything.
3. Eradicate, remove malicious files, close backdoors, and restore clean files from trusted backups.
4. Update, patch the platform, update plugins/themes, and fix vulnerable configurations.
5. Rotate, reset all passwords and API keys that might have been exposed.
6. Harden, reduce attack surface: disable unused plugins, enforce strong TLS, tighten file permissions.
7. Request review, if search engines flagged you, request a review after cleaning (google search console has a review request process).
8. Monitor, increase scanning cadence and monitor logs for re-infection signs.

Note: If you suspect sensitive data was stolen (payment details, PII, account passwords), follow your jurisdiction's notification rules and consult legal counsel and a professional incident responder.

Preventive measures that reduce the chance of getting hacked

Build: Prevention is easier than cleanup. adopt a few reliable hardening measures:

• Keep your core platform, plugins, and themes up to date;
• Use strong, unique passwords and enable multi-factor authentication for all admin accounts;
• Limit admin access by IP where practical and use the principle of least privilege;
• Run regular backups and store copies offsite; periodically test restores;
• Harden file permissions and avoid writable directories for executable content;
• Use a web application firewall (waf) and employ rate limiting to block brute force attempts;
• Use secure communication (https/tls) and configure hsts and secure cookies;
• Scan third-party code and dependencies for vulnerabilities before deploying.

Final thoughts: detection is a habit, not a one-time task

Commit: Make checking part of your routine. weekly scans, automated alerts, and periodic manual reviews will catch problems early and give you time to respond without panic.

Leverage: Combine human inspection (visual checks, log review) with automated tools (scanners, search console, safe browsing checks). keep clear playbooks for containment and recovery so your team can move fast when an incident occurs.