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What to Do in the First Hour Print

  • recoveringfromhack, recovering, hacked, spam, backup, password, email, database, restore, ftp
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Immediate steps.

DO NOT PANIC

Most compromises are recoverable.

STEP ONE: TAKE A BACKUP

Even of the compromised site.

You may need it for investigation, and you may make things worse.

STEP TWO: ESTABLISH SCOPE

One site or all sites on the account? Is data involved? Is spam being sent?

STEP THREE: CHANGE PASSWORDS

Hosting, site administrator, database, FTP, email.

From a clean computer.

THAT LAST POINT

If your own machine is compromised, changing passwords from it changes nothing.

STEP FOUR: TELL US

Open a ticket. We can see things you cannot, and we may already be aware.

STEP FIVE: CONSIDER TAKING THE SITE OFFLINE

If it is actively harming visitors or sending spam.

A maintenance page is better than a site distributing malware.

WHAT NOT TO DO YET

Delete files randomly Restore a backup without knowing when the compromise started

WHAT COMES NEXT

A proper cleanup, covered in the following articles.


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