Recovering From A Hacked Website; Essential Tips

Its common place for your website to get hacked so
don't think you're being singled out. The motivation
behind hacking your website could be personal
vendetta or some random dude just itching to test his
skills. Your website getting hacked is just one
occurrence, the choices you make from that moment
are gravely important.
I've had a good number of bloggers approach me for
help with their hacked websites. On questioning
them about the steps they took shortly after, I
couldn't help but scold them because they did even
worse than the hacker did to their website. When
you discover that your website has been hacked, you
tend to feel angry, helpless and frustrated; especially
when its defaced. The first thing that comes to mind
would be to restore your most recent backup so your
website can be up and running again. If this sounds
like a good idea to you then think again because its a
terrible idea.
First off, you need to ask yourself how the website
was hacked. Restoring your most recent backup not
only means you'll lose data (your most recent posts
and comments) but also that you just deleted your
chance to figure out how your website got hacked in
the first place.
How did my website get hacked?
Whether your website is hosted (e.g on Blogger or
Wordpress) or self-hosted (e.g Free or Paid hosting
servers). There's a good chance it could get hacked.
From my experience, having vulnerabilities in your
scripts (or plugins) is one and using the same
password on multiple accounts is another.
If you happen to use the same credentials on your
website's Admin account as on accounts on other
websites then one of them getting leaked
automatically puts your website in danger. This is
how Blogger and Adsense accounts often get
hijacked.
Mistakes you might make when you discover your
website has been hacked
Its going to be hard but you need to be calm.
Reinstalling your website's software means you'll lose
all your data (especially if you've not been backing
up). Restoring your most recent backup too quickly
means you'll lose your most recent posts and
comments. Moving your website to a new (sub)
domain without (htaccess tweaks) could be the end
of your link juice because you'll not only end up with
duplicate content, but will lose all ranking and link
juice associated with your previous (sub) domain.
What's the first thing to do once my website is
hacked?
First, you need to find out how it got hacked. If your
website is hosted then chances are that your
credentials were leaked and you first need to change
your password (or regain access to your account). If
you use a Free or Paid host then you'll want to:
Login to cPanel
Backup your files and databases in their presently
hacked state then keep securely (for future reference
Find out your current IP address (there are several
online tools for that)
Locate the htacess file in public_html
Input the following lines then save
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 12.34.567.890
* Replace 12.34.567.890 with your current IP address
This will block all access to your website (except you)
so you can begin investigating. What you're looking
for are strange files (shells) in your public_html (sort
by date because they're usually recently created /
uploaded files). You should also check your database
for suspicious entries.
What you're able to find will tell you the nature of
the exploit and how it might have occurred. You
would also want to uninstall all plugins till the
website is stable again. Consider asking an
experienced webmaster or your host for help with
scanning your website for shells & back doors. Once
those are removed, you can then commence the
never ending task of beefing up your website's
security.
If the hacker had deleted any post you'd not backed
up then you have Google cache to recover that post.
Simply Google that post, then click the arrow in front
of the link (in the Google Search result) and select
Cached. Copy then recreate that post (ensure the url
matches).
Don't forget, your number one defense against
getting hacked is backing up your website regularly.
Courtesy of hovatek.

http://www.earlyface.com.ng/webmaster-and-wapmaster-forum/recovering-from-a-hacked-website-essential-tips/