As you may know, my blog was hacked during the past week. On Thursday morning, I started to see my site kept getting redirected to other domains. Initially, I thought it was my own mistakes setting up those redirections at cPanel by myself. But after further examination, I had come to new conclusions that the site was under attack. Later that day, there were AdBrite ads installed throughout my posts. Just as an example, you can see, in below graph, the ad the hacker installed in my footer area.
After going through all the fixes, this hack now is just water under the bridge. Having experienced a hack myself however, I do realize how damaging it could be if not managed properly. It took me a long time to clean up those nasty ads, not mention to the downtime and damaged relationships it caused between me and my readers. There you go. I want to share some lessons that I have learned the hard way. Here are 8 things you should NOT DO when your site is getting hacked.
1. Do not assume it is a false alarm
Do not assume everything is OK while, in fact, somebody else is taking over the control of your site. If you’ve seen anything abnormal, such as domain redirections or random ad installations, take necessary actions and pinpoint the real causes behind the problem.
2. Do not hesitate to ask questions
When I first saw what happened on my blog, I had no idea it was a hack. But intuitively, I knew there must be something going wrong. What I did is that I posted the “symptoms” I see in different places where I can get help, including forums, other related blogs, etc. Fortunately, somebody immediately spotted my question and responded me in a timely manner. The following conversation took place on DIYthemes Forum:
WebStudio13: My blog keeps getting redirected to sendptp.com/ramk2.html. I use thesis theme. Could anybody help?
Pbarron (from philipbarron.net): I’m afraid that your site has been hacked. If you start to load your site in the browser but stop the loading before the redirection, then view your home page’s source, you can see three iframe links at the very bottom of the page, each of them linking to this sendptp.com site. Hard to say how malicious the hack is; I don’t see much on it in Google. Tell your webhost, run a virus scan on whatever computers you use to access your site, change your WP and FTP passwords. You may find some more guidance at this thread.
Mr. Barron’s response is very specific and helpful. We’ve had succeeding discussions after that. As you can see, asking the right questions is the key to resolving the problem. After all, isn’t that what Internet is all about? Give to receive…
3. Do not hold off contacting your host
Contacting your host and letting them know about your problem is necessary and crucial. Most times, they should be able to tell you what is going wrong and what to do next.
4. Do not overly rely on your host
I made a mistake wasting too much time with my host, which is Just Host. After I contacted them initially to notify them about my problem, they first sent somebody to chat with me via their IM system. Then I was suggested to send an email to their support team to further investigate the root of the problem. After getting a helpless email back from Just Host Support team, I resolved to call their support department. But I finally gave up after waiting on hold for 15 minutes with the annoying music playing in the background.
5. Do not wait, hoping things will get better themselves
As humans, we have a tendency to put off things that we are uncertain of. My blog was hacked in Thursday morning, but I didn’t take rescue action until the following day. What happened then? When I visited my blog in Friday morning, not only was it inserted with AdBrite ads everywhere, it also got audio played automatically upon my visit (I hate sites that have audios or videos turned on automatically when I visit). Anyway, you get my point. Take immediate and massive action to get rid of the “intruders.” The longer you wait, the more damage they can do on your site.
6. Do not fix your site completely on your own if you are new
Make a habit of doing sufficient research before you do something that could potentially have huge impact on something you care so much about. In my case, I first Googled “What next when your blog is hacked,” and got an overwhelming amount of resources. Fortunately, I then used Delicious to set the good articles apart from the mediocre ones. Based on my collection of resources, I finally backed up all the images, plugins, and templates on my blog before I wiped out all the content and reinstalled my site. It was a painful experience. But it’s worth your time to learn every bit of the information. I’ve previously written a post about how to use Delicious to bookmark interesting articles, check it out here.
7. Do not ever leave your Wordpress blog un-upgraded again
Upgrading your Wordpress blog to the newest version does not guarantee that you don’t get hacked, but it is a necessary step toward building a more secure blog. Wordpress has released the newest version 2.8.5. Now it’s beta testing version 2.9. As you can see, there are plenty of security holes with the current version of Wordpress. That is exactly why Wordpress is frequently rolling out new versions. If you do not keep up with updating your Wordpress blog, bad things will happen. It’s just a matter of time.
8. Do not get discouraged
As it goes in my favorite Rocky movie dialogue, “It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” It is important to look at the hack from a positive angel. In my case, I’ve redesigned my blog that I couldn’t have got time to do otherwise. Now the look and feel of my blog is better than ever before. I’ve also learned several crucial lessons which I am sharing with you now. There is no bad experience, everything you experience is for a reason. Believe it or not, you will figure out something valuable from everything you experience in your life, good or bad.
Have your blog been hacked before? Feel free to share your experiences with us.
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