When I was working for a university in Illinois it wasn’t uncommon for me to get phone calls along the lines of “the xxx department website is playing foreign music.” or “there’s religious propaganda replacing department y’s website.” These are some pretty obvious signs that the website was hacked and something needs to be done about it.

Unfortunately today most attacks aren’t so obvious. Most hacks today result in websites becoming infected and then spreading that infection to unaware users and possibly even other servers. Trust me when I say you don’t want to be in this boat. It can take quite a bit of time to clean up a mess that may have been there long before you discovered it. I still remember getting a call from the central campus IT just before I left that Illinois school asking if I would have some availability to help them clean a site. I asked them if they would like me to stop by one day that week and they told me they would need me until February (it was October when I took the call). Yikes. Whatever they had managed to find its way throughout not just one site but hundreds or more before it was discovered. It was too late.

How can a person or organization know when their website has been compromised before it gets out of control? More importantly, how can that same person or organization know their website has been compromised before their customers find it themselves? It really isn’t hard to find a hack. Here are 5 signs you can watch for to make sure your site hasn’t become a victim. [Continue Reading...]