Hackers are by far one of the biggest webmasters nightmares. Since it is almost impossible to make your website 100% hacker proof, administrators will have to deal with hackers every now and then. All the hackers need is just a small hole in the coding process and they immediately gain entry through the backend of your site. The best a web master can have to mitigate any loss through hacking is a backup which he can use to restore the site. This however does not still answer the question of whether there is a guarantee that the site will not be hacked again.
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Information forms the centermost part of our lives. Our operations are dependent how well we manipulate and generally process information within our systems. Since hacking is inevitable, below are some of the tips that you can employ to regain control of your site once it has been broken into.
Website Backup
This should be the first step you should undertake in light of any hacking indent. The necessity of the backup process lies in the recovery process to follow thereafter. For a successful website recovery process to take place, a clean-up must be done which could easily lead to the loss of some critical information hence a back-up. Joomla templates sites require that you back-up the database and files in HTML directory structure since it operates on a database driven platform.
Searching and Recording Of Evidence
Just like in real physical break-ins, hacking leaves foot prints which acts as clues indicating where the hacker came from. Such evidence is to be documented as it can help you achieve a couple of things amongst them an analysis of how the hacker entered the site. Through screenshots and notes, hacking evidence can be aptly captured.
Contact Your Web hosting Service Provider
The technicalities involving hacking may sound strange if you do not have information technology foreknowledge. Your writing to the web hosting service provider should be as detailed as possible while at the same time taking care of any evidence that has been collected in screenshots and notes. The information you provide him will go a long way in helping him clear the hacks while at the same time attempting to analyze the likely routes and channels used by the hacker.
Maintenance Mode Notification
When your site is going through the cleanup process, it is vital that you put it in a maintenance mode. This will serve as an automatic and polite reminder to your users. It will also reduce the chances of you affecting others within your network.
Clean Up Other External Computer Devices
The chances of viruses and malware left behind after hacking is very high. The technicality of hacking lies in the fact that hackers use malware and viruses to gain access to a system and take as much information as they need. Peripheral devices such as mobiles, flash disks and CD’s must be cleaned before they can be re-inserted into the PCs. This is in order to prevent the chances of re-infection. In cleaning the malware and the viruses, it is recommended that the appropriate anti-malware and antivirus software is used.
Changing Passwords to Restrict Entry
The information that hackers carry along with them comprises many things amongst them passwords. In severe hacking cases, even bank passwords could be compromised making it an urgent measure to change the passwords to restrict entry for repeat hackers. The password also should be a mixture of characters and letters making it difficult for the hacker to reconfigure.
Bolstering Online Security
Just like heart attacks, if you survive the first one you may live to see the old age. This is because you will take necessary precautions never to suffer another one again. Similarly in cyber attacks, knowing the potential threat hacking can have on your business or company it is vital that you watch out. You may find it useful to purchase additional security features to bolster the existing ones such as firewalls. It is also recommended that you carry out site-wide surveillance coupled with periodic reviews just to ensure that your security is in check.
It is important to protect your data at every stance because hacking can be very devastating and damaging to you business. Ethical hacking has been developed as a discipline where professionals engage in hacking in ways that are non-malicious to test how tight a site’s online security is.
Author bio:
Has your Joomla site been hacked and you want to know how to regain its control. This article is written by Rose, a professional Information Technology who gives useful ideas on regaining control of websites from hackers. In additional, she writes reviews for an array of websites in IT.
