How to Recover a Hacked Website

A hacked site is stressful but recoverable. Work calmly through contain, clean, restore and harden — and fix the entry point so it cannot recur.

Step-by-step

1. Change all passwords immediately — cPanel, email, database users and CMS admin. This contains an active intruder.
2. Scan with Imunify360 to locate infected files — see scanning for malware.
3. Take a backup of the current (hacked) state before cleaning, so nothing is lost during recovery.
4. Restore from a known-clean backup if you have one from before the hack — see recovering files. This is the fastest clean route.
5. Find and fix the entry point. Update or remove outdated plugins/apps, check for unknown admin users, and review access logs for how they got in.
6. Harden the site: enable 2FA, correct permissions, update everything, and run a fresh scan to confirm it is clean.