My Website Got Hacked...
What to do if your website gets hacked? Simple, lock it down. No not really, if the website has been
hacked then shutting the entire website down is a futile effort to deal with the situation. Although
WebSafe does not deal directly with websites that have already been breached, there are simple steps
to be taken if your website has been hacked, besides calling us to figure out how.
1. Shut down any web applications. i.e. Content Management Admin sections, payment areas, third party vendors access.
2. Inform users that the website will be acting strangely, depending on the audience telling the truth maybe best. See www.boards.ie who openly spread the word that they had been compromised. This was the correct move for their audience and the remained trust in the community no doubt left their advertisers confident.
3. Set up the investigation team, via – third party software vendors or internal staff that deal with the website.
4. Investigation process must highlight two key factors.
a. Damage caused.
b. Cause of damage.
5. Find a solution and fix the problem. This can be a costly process sometimes leading to a complete revamp.
Too often, management are focused on the damage that is caused by the hacking, remember hacking implies a
group of people solely out to attack your website. This is most likely not the case. The real worry is how
these people or bots got access to an unauthorized area of your web server or website application.
Most likely Cause of the Attack?
These areas were not authorized. The truth of the matter is if an area is restricted then no-one who is not
authorized can access it. Therefore there is no such thing in stating:
“The hacker got access to an authorized area”
No they did not! You just didn’t force the hacker to authenticate himself. Unless the hackers were
able to guess usernames and passwords then the hackers found a loop hole and went through it meaning
it is the developers fault(i say this lightly). Budgets and project management/deadlines usually are
to blame.
Prevent Hacking Attacks
There is no real way to cover all known types of hacker attacks. There are multiple points of entry
Operating System, Website forms, Website Application, Database intrusion, Port manipulation, Web
Services and more. The best practice is to get your website a security audit to point your IT
department or software vendors in the right direction, even just for academic purposes.
See: What We Check For
See: Check Your Website
Author:
James Snipes,
Software Developer & Network Analyst
Contact James through our
Contact Us Page