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Recovering from a hacked site

If your website has been hacked recently, review the recommended steps below to recover a hacked website and prevent future hacks.

Recovering from an attack

To recover from an attack, reach out to your hosting provider to request:

  • Details about the hack, including how they believe the site was hacked.
  • That your hosting provider remove any malicious content placed on your website.

Once the hack has been resolved, you should resolve site warnings in Google Webmaster Tools ↗ and resubmit your site for Google’s review.


Preventing and mitigating the risks of a future hack

To prevent the risk of a hacked site:

  • Activate Cloudflare’s WAF managed rules so they can challenge or block known malicious behavior.
  • If you use a Content Management System (CMS), make sure you have the most recent version installed (CMS platforms push out updates to address known vulnerabilities).
  • If you use plugins, make sure they are updated.
  • If you have an admin login page, protect it with Cloudflare’s Rate limiting rules or a Cloudflare Access policy.
  • Use a backup service so you can avoid losing valid content.