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Why did my website get hacked?
It’s a terrible feeling to find out your website has been hacked. But you’re not alone; some sources say as many as 30,000 websites get hacked per day (and it’s probably more than that). These hackers aren’t targeting you or your business specifically; they’re looking for any website with a vulnerability. Many times, it’s not even a real person hacking your site, it’s an automated script or a bot.
Speed is key
A hacked website needs to be fixed as quickly as possible. We don’t want it to impact your customers or do further damage to your site. Every situation is different, so the steps we take differ each time, but a few things we might try include:
- Do a complete backup
- Use a security scanning program to look for the problems
- Reset all user passwords
- Reinstall and update all the plugins
- Core WordPress file scan and replacement (to make sure there are no files there that shouldn’t be)
With luck, these preliminary steps would solve the problem, but sometimes the hack can go much deeper. In those cases, you may need to build a new website from scratch, which can be an expensive undertaking.
Websites are an asset
Your website is an investment and a valuable part of your business, so protecting it is important. At Vireo Productions, we integrate many security strategies when we’re building websites, but the best medicine is preventative. The number one cause of hacked websites is out of date plugins. Hackers look for vulnerabilities in plugins and exploit them, which is why the plugins get updated — to close that security gap. But if you’re not logging in regularly and clicking that update button, that security hole never gets fixed.
Preventative care
We offer a maintenance plan that ensures your website is always up to date. The package also includes security scans and regular backups so that if something does go wrong, it can be fixed easily. If you rarely log in to your website to do those updates, you may want to consider getting a company like Vireo to manage your site for you. Give us a ring if you want to chat about website maintenance!