What happened when my website got hacked and how did I recover it?

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Imagine this, you wake up to a beautiful morning, you are grateful to the universe because of the way your business is flourishing due to its online presence, the orders that you receive daily, the leads that you receive daily, the subscribers that you get, the people who talk about you on various social media channels. You take your morning cup of coffee and open up your website. And what do you see?

You have been hacked!

Yes, it happened with one of my websites. I had just started with one of my test projects, The site was not very popular but it was still important for me. Since it was a new website and I had limited data on it, I had not implemented the security features completely. I used to be believe that since the site is not much popular, so why would anyone hack it? Right? Those hackers had proven me extremely wrong.

I am telling you from my personal experience that it is a very bad feeling when you get hacked. I remember I could feel my heart thumping faster and a few drops of sweat rolling down my forehead when I saw the ridiculous image posted on website's home page that I was hacked.

While doing my research online on how to get back my hacked wordpress website, I came upon this article where it was explained in detail what all steps should be done.

I am just summarizing the steps below:

Step 1: Identify Hack

1.1 : Scan the website

1.2 : Check WordPress core files integrity (if they have been compromised)

1.3 : Check the latest modified files

1.4 : Check diagnostic pages

Step 2: Clean Hack

2.1 : Clean hacked Website files

2.2 : Clean hacked database tables

2.3 : Secure user accounts

2.4 : Remove hidden backdoors

2.5 : Remove malware warnings

Step 3: What to do post hack so that it does not happen again

3.1 : Update and reset configuration settings

3.2 : Harden WordPress

3.3 : Create backups

3.4 : Scan my computer

3.5 : Add a firewall

After going through the article, I realized that I had implemented some of the steps mentioned in the article. Doing all these actions manually seemed too tedious and I didn't want to go through with it. So, I decided to get professional help. Somehow, I felt it would be better if I ask a professional company to help me and get my website back. I thought a professional company would be an expert in this niche and I can trust them to fix my website. After that, I also checked a few more popular websites that offer this service, but then finally I went ahead with Sucuri and purchased their website security platform.

I was fortunate that I got back the site quickly in a matter of  a few hours. Can you believe it! I got it back in a matter of few hours!

There is no comparison to the mental peace you feel when you get your website back after it had been hacked.

These sucuri guys are just so awesome. They restored my website in a matter of a few hours and additionally, they monitor and protect the website from hackers throughout the year. They also scan your website for any malwares put by hackers and clean them. Also, they are not just into protecting wordpress websites; they also work with other platforms like magento, drupal etc.

Just to show you proof, here is screenshot from sucuri when I purchased their website security firewall, I have blurred my personal details for security purposes:

I would never want something like this to happen with anybody. Prevention is far better than cure. If your website is important for your business (it is important, that is why you have got the website made, isn't it? duh ) and if you want to protect yourself, you can also take their yearly subscription. I believe ‘Every penny they charge is worth it'.