Thread: My website has been hacked

Originally Posted by p38arover

I've been thinking of doing a site rebuild with new software as it's seriously out of date.

I would be trying to figure out how they got in first.

Is that even possible?

Wordpress or static site?

No, not Wordpress. I’ve tried to use WP so I could maintain our radio club website but it’s too steep a learning curve. I can do only really basic stuff with WP.

I’m not sure what a static site is.

To show how old it is, I created it with HotDog from Sausage Software. It’s not an interactive site.

If I redo it, it will be done with Infomedia’s WebSite X5 for which I have a licence and with which I have created a couple of websites for others (one being a local camera club. The webpage is no longer up because the club President didn’t want to continue paying the webhosting costs). Another is a British car parts place in the USA.

Originally Posted by p38arover

HotDog from Sausage Software.

Wow, there's a blast from the past. One of Oz's first dotcom bottle rockets.

Originally Posted by p38arover

Is that even possible?

It's rare they properly clean up after themselves. I'd start with system and auth logs. That should indicated when they got in and what they used.
The problem is, you're going to clean up and refresh, but you have no idea which door they used to get in and whether it's properly locked.

I don't know what your hosting system is capable of because I've always hosted my own stuff on either a VPS or a Co-Lo box, so I have full control.

One problem with doing a new site is that there are many links around various fora to pages on my site. Doing a new site would probably make those links no longer work.

Originally Posted by p38arover

One problem with doing a new site is that there are many links around various fora to pages on my site. Doing a new site would probably make those links no longer work.

There's a few options then. As the old site was static, just put the content back in place with a new index.html pointing to the new revised content. Of course that relies on you having had a backup of the content.

Otherwise, each old page could be replaced with a simple static redirect page to the content in its new location.

The last a nuclear option is to make your 404 page re-direct to your new index. Something like : "Hey due to a intrusion we've had to update the site. All the stuff you are looking for is still here, just in a different location. You'll be re-directed to the new index in 10 seconds".

I'm a stickler for continuity, which is why I host all my own images and content. The web has a long memory, and ensuring it remains useful means sometimes you need to do a bit of work in the background to maintain continuity.