It’s probably one of the scariest things that can ever happen to a blogger. Yes, even scarier than getting banned from Adsense. You wake up in the morning and discover that your valued website has been taken over by a hacker and it’s now showing some nasty message to all of your readers. This can’t be good.
A couple of months ago, I talked briefly about a handy tool that helps you quickly and easily back up your blog, but what about when it comes time to actually restore your blog back to its former state? Well, this process is comprised of 7 basic steps, as described by Jon Lee, who unfortunately has some first-hand experience in the matter.
- Regain Control: Change your passwords and contact your web host to tell them what happened.
- Restore Files and Database from a Backup: That’s where that useful plug-in comes into play. You should make a full backup of your blog at least once a month.
- Restore Missing Information: Some things will have to be put back manually, like uploads (pictures).
- Locate the Vulnerability: You want to know what went wrong so that you can prevent it from happening again.
- Eliminate the Vulnerability: The obvious next step.
- Do a Sweep for Suspicious Files: Make sure the hacker didn’t leave any backdoor entry-ways.
- Monitor Site Activity: Keep an eye out to see if the hacker is trying to work his way back in.
More detailed instructions can be found here.
