Getting hacked can be a frustrating, stressful experience — especially when your website is central to your business. The good news is that there are things you can do to regain control. The bad news? Once a website has been compromised, there's always the possibility that hidden backdoors have been planted in places no scanner will ever find. Here's what you need to know.
Step 1: Run a Full Security Audit
If you're using a platform like WordPress, your first response should be to scan your website for vulnerabilities and malware. This includes:
If you're hosted on Xneelo, you can activate Cloudbric, a firewall that monitors your traffic and blocks suspicious activity. This is a great line of defense against ongoing attacks and automated bots.
Step 2: Understand the Risk of Backdoors
Here's the unfortunate truth: once a site has been hacked, there's no guaranteed way to know how deep the compromise goes.
Even if you've removed malicious files and patched obvious vulnerabilities, there's always a risk that the hacker planted a backdoor — a hidden way for them to re-enter your site later. These backdoors can be buried in:
- Theme files
- Custom plugins
- The database itself
Many of them are designed to evade scanners entirely.
While scans and firewall protections are useful and should stabilize things in the short term, they don't offer complete peace of mind. The risk of reinfection remains.
Step 3: Decide on Your Path Forward
There are two main options when recovering from a hack:
Option 1: Clean and Harden the Current Site
This is often the first step, especially if you want to avoid downtime or the cost of a rebuild. Here's what that process usually includes:
- Full scan and cleanup of files
- Password resets for all users
- Locking down admin access
- Setting up two-factor authentication
- Installing firewall and brute-force protection
- Monitoring file changes and login attempts
- Reviewing user roles and permissions
If things stay stable, great. But if suspicious behavior pops up again — strange redirects, injected content, broken logins — it's time to move to the next option.
Option 2: Rebuild From Scratch
If a site keeps getting reinfected, the safest and most future-proof option is to rebuild it from the ground up.
This means:
- Starting with a clean WordPress install
- Installing only trusted, well-maintained plugins
- Copying over content manually (never full folders)
- Avoiding copying over theme or plugin files that could be compromised
- Automating updates and setting up strong security from day one
While this is more work upfront, it gives you peace of mind that the site is truly clean — and not secretly under someone else's control.
Final Thoughts
Hackers are always finding new ways in. Even major companies like LinkedIn have fallen victim to cyber attacks. But you can reduce your risk dramatically by:
If your website has already been compromised, cleaning it up is a great first step — but don't rule out a rebuild if problems persist. A secure website is a living system, not a one-time setup.
Need Help Recovering From a Hack?
Our team can help you assess the damage, clean up your site, or rebuild it from scratch with security best practices built in from day one.