Website safety is a fundamental issue connected with the loss of high-quality business resources and data of registered website users.

There are several ways to understand that something is wrong. Some Browser can inform you about hacker attacks by message, which will significantly decrease users’ traffic. It is straightforward to understand. A decrease in website loading is another sign of problems; it could also be pop-up messages with technical mistakes.

The attack can happen to everyone; it is essential to do the reserve copies every week, use authentication policy for all users, including additional verification code for transactions, use only a trustable hosting provider.

There are different ways to find if your website has experienced any attack, viruses, or cracks. Let’s discuss the most convenient in detail.

5 ways to check your website

1. Manual analysis of all links for incorporated harmful or exterior links or any other content.

One of the hacker’s attacks is injection attacks when into website system components codes are inserted redirecting the users to other resources. Also, unwanted content can be inserted into HTML, JAVA, or JPG files.

Professional IT specialists can check website coding, check the files with unusual extensions, strange names. It is vital to check non-standard attributes for the files and found files recently created in large numbers.

The date of files creation before the website exists should always be suspicious. Malicious files can be hidden in folders rarely visited by system administrators like temp, backup. Anyway, such a method of website analysis is complicated and takes a lot of time and can be executed only with significant experience of virus attacks.

2. Check of website safety in the Browser

Google Chrome provides an opportunity to check any website safety via a built-in tool – Safety check. This tool makes it possible to check the safety of used passwords; you will be notified if you use the same one on several resources and somewhere it was stolen.

Additionally, it allows you to work in safe browsing protection mode, protecting you from unwanted software, malware, and unprotected extensions. You may try to open your website in Google Chrome, and if you are notified about an attempt to execute dangerous action on your computer, this is the trigger to check website safety more closely. Although this safety check does not show the exact place of attack, it provides preliminary information about possible hacker attacks.

Google Search Console provides recommendations for searching and healing a website that experienced an attack.

3. Scanning website for viruses online resources

If the damage is done, it is better to check concerns more closely with online resources than continue with antivirus programs. The online resources work fast, most of them easy to operate and without registration.

Online scanners are using their antivirus databases or from the market and checking for: links to external resources, hidden redirects, presence in the database of harmful resources, encrypted scripts, spam content. Some of these resources are even for free but cannot be fully trusted. The functionality of free resources can be extended by paying some money.

Among online scanners for viruses and attacks could be suggested: i2p, Dr. Web, Kaspersky VirusDesk, Norton Safe Web, Quttera.

4. Scanning website for viruses with special software installed on PC

This next step of checking much software – antivirus programs – with the latest updates can be helpful. Before such a check, all content from a website should be downloaded on PC in a separate folder. If some broken files are found, it is better to substitute them with reserve copies.

Particular attention should be paid to files close to the expected infection date, uploading scripts, images, redirects, and any other external content you did not upload. Antivirus programs can find Trojan horses, worms, spyware, and similar unpleasant hacker products. After checking, it is required to change all passwords and strengthen the authentication process for the website administrator.

The following antivirus programs can be suggested: McAfee, Norton Antivirus, Kaspersky, Webroot, and many others.

5. Safety check during SEO analysis of the website

SEO analysis is the mandatory part of website functionality examination for its ranking in search engines. This analysis aims to optimize the website and improve its content (keywords, images, articles, URL) to be more understandable for Google algorithms; this will lead to top positions during search and organic traffic without additional advertisements.

Complete SEO analysis consists of on-page SEO (check of content on site), off-page SEO (how the site is mentioned in other resources), technical SEO (safety check, time of website downloading, quality of website coding).

A safety check for viruses and harmful content is an obligatory part of any SEO analysis. It directly impacts search engine analytics to include the website at the top. The following SEO tools can be recommended: Spyfu, MozPro, Ahrefs, Pr-CY.

Pr-CY provides for everybody up to 5 times per day an opportunity to find virus infections on the websites. In addition, it gives the results of security analysis from Google and Yandex.

Conclusion

It is not possible to protect your site fully from all harmful attacks and viruses, but it is better to follow all safety instructions:

• use only licensed updated software on your website,
• check for hacker attacks at least on a biweekly basis using one of five described ways,
• do not use free software as it might be harmful,
• use only complicated passwords and update them regularly,
• make backups,
• obtain an SSL certificate for your website,
• limit access rights for website managers, implement several levels of access rights
• regular update CMS.

If you realize that you were hacked, it is essential to react immediately. The more time hackers have access to your website; the more terrible will be the consequences. The treatment process of every website takes a lot of time; it is better to ask a professional to perform this activity. Do not save money and time on the website treatment as this may lead to your problems and your customers.