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Unfortunately from time to time websites get hacked and Warning: Visiting this site may harm your computer! is displayed to your visitors. Usually this malicious activity simply adds a series of links to other sites, however sometimes a website can completely defaced or even worse – completely removed!

For example, visitors to your website might see some something like this instead of your homepage:

This warning is what Google displays when it detects that a website has been hacked. In order to get rid of this message you need to remove all infected code from your website and then re-submit your site for review by Google. This review process can be done via the Google Webmaster site.

We believe that WordPress is an excellent solution for maintaining your website, however from time to time like all software new methods to hack it are discovered. Thankfully the WordPress development community are quick to patch these exploits. Most successful hacking attempts for all websites (both WordPress and non-WordPress) can be due to exploits in the security of the company you host your website with. In addition your website maybe have lax secuity permissions therefore it may be easy for a hacker to upload and install malicious code on you web server.

My website has been hacked! How do I fix it?

First speak to your website hosting company, they should be aware of any recent malicious activity on their servers and may be able to help you restore a recent backup back to a point before the site was hacked. Second, put in place measures to prevent your site being hacked again. We’ve written a blog post with some great tips on the ways to stop your WordPress website from being hacked. Click here to view the blog post on preventing your website from being hacked.

Many web design companies are great at building websites but aren’t so good and maintaining websites. Ask your website designer what measures they have in place to prevent malicious attacks and get them to explain how they backup your website. Possibly consider moving website hosting companies if you don’t believe they have the right systems in place. No one can guarantee that your site will never be hacked but you want to be sure that as much is being done to prevent it from happening again.

If you are struggling to get your WordPress website fixed then contact us at Red Jet as we can usually fix websites in a matter of hours and we can also re-submit your site to Google for review.

Prevent your WordPress site from being hacked again

After you have fixed your hacked website you will want to put measures in place to prevent it happening again. There are several things that can be done to prevent your website from being hacked again and we created a blog post about it here: Prevent your WordPress website from being hacked.

Tags: Small Business Websites, Website Security, WordPress