My cPanel site was hacked - any advise on what to do?

Question

My cPanel site was hacked. The attacker has changed my cPanel password. How could he do that and how can I gain access to my site back?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The hacker could have obtained access by knowing your password or some exploit.

You should get in touch with the hosting provider via their customer support, they should be able to help. Probably a good idea to change any passwords relating to this cpanel account, including email passwords.

Answer 2

the most likely cause is that at some time your antivirus was compromised. You have had a virus/worm or similar placed on your computer. These things can record your key strokes OR the person is watching on screen EVERYTHING you are doing, so when you enter in your passwords etc, they just watch and write it down (or store in files) they have ALL your files and can be on your computer going through all your files while you are on line and you will never know they are there. There is only ONE way to truly get rid of them.

Once spyware is on your computer it is hidden, you will NOT find it and THEY will NOT allow yourantivirus to work.

First thing to do is disconnect from the internet= log off completely. PHONE contact your banks etc and let them know before you get cleaned out. Next, save all your files to an external source (disk, external hard drive etc) photos, text files etc. when that is done you must REINSTALL your windows program (xp, vista, windows7 whichever you are using) after that you reinstall all your programs.

You MUST completely REMOVE your antivirus software (this will happen when you reinstall you main software (windows7 etc) and REINSTALL your antivirus software.

If you do not reload your main program and your antivirus, it (the virus) will be there waiting for you when you come back.

Once you have done this, reload all your other programs, reload all your files that you saved, THEN you can log back into the internet and then you MUST change all your passwords.

For your cpanel and other important places such as banking etc you should use a TEN digit password with 2 CAPITALS 2 lower case 2 numbers and 2 symbols the extra 2 can be anything you wish. so like this AAbb22^&?> but mix them up. like this: 2bS*K$?c@P NEVER use anything that would make a WORD!!!

If you dont remove and reload your main computer program AND your antivirus, you will still have keyloggers or people watching everything you do. This happened to me too.