Hacked, flagged, or infected? We can sort it.
If your website has been compromised, the priority is simple: get it clean, get it back, and close the door it came through. We take on rescue work whether or not the site is one we built. If you’re dealing with this right now, call 01603 244130 and we’ll tell you where you stand. Assessed free, then a fixed quote before any clean-up begins.
What's gone wrong
If any of this sounds familiar.
A compromised site shows itself in a few common ways. If you're seeing one of these, this is the service you need.
If something feels off but you're not sure, get in touch anyway. Working out whether a site has been compromised at all is the first thing we do, and it costs you nothing to ask.
A red warning screen in front of your site, from Google or the browser, telling visitors the site is dangerous
Your site flagged in search results, marked as hacked or harmful, so people won't click
Strange content you didn't put there: spam links, pop-ups, unfamiliar pages, redirects to other sites
Your host has suspended the site, or emailed you about malware
Customers or colleagues telling you something looks wrong, or that they were sent somewhere odd
You can't log in, or the admin area is behaving strangely
What we do
Clean it, close the gap, get it back.
A security rescue follows a clear sequence. The detail varies with the site, but the shape is consistent.
01. Assess and scan
We start with a full scan to find what’s wrong: malware, injected code, spam content, unauthorised user accounts, and any changes that shouldn't be there. This tells us how deep the problem goes before anything else happens.
02. Find how they got in
Cleaning a site without finding the way in just means it gets compromised again next week. We track down the vulnerability behind the breach, usually an outdated plugin, a weak or reused password, or a known WordPress exploit, so the actual cause gets dealt with, not just the symptoms.
03. Clean the infection
We remove the malware, the injected code, the spam, and anything else that shouldn't be there. Where the cleanest and safest route is restoring from a known-good backup, we'll do that instead, and rebuild forward from a point before the compromise.
04. Harden the site and hosting
With the site clean, we close the gap: updating and patching, strengthening logins, tightening WordPress and server configuration, and removing whatever weakness let the attacker in. The aim is a site that’s not just clean but harder to hit next time, with the specific weakness that let them in gone.
05. Lift any blocklisting
If Google has flagged the site, or browsers are showing a malware warning, we handle the clean-up submission and the request to have the warning removed, so the site stops scaring away the people you want to reach.
Worth knowing
Most hacks aren't clever, and most fixes aren't either.
It's worth saying plainly: the large majority of website compromises we see are not sophisticated, targeted attacks. They're automated. Software roams the web looking for known weaknesses, an outdated plugin, a weak password, an unpatched WordPress install, and walks in through whichever door was left open.
That's reassuring, in a way. It means most security rescues are security and hosting work rather than development work. There's rarely any custom coding involved. It's methodical: find the door, see what came through it, clean up, lock the door. The skill is in doing that thoroughly and not missing anything, not in writing new software.
Occasionally a site is too far gone, or too old to secure. If that’s the case we’ll say so rather than charge you to patch something that can’t be saved, and we’ll talk through the alternatives, usually a rebuild or a recovery.
Keeping it clean
A clean site that drifts will be hacked again.
The single most common reason a site needs rescuing is simple: it was running unmaintained, on cheap hosting, with updates left undone. Cleaning the site fixes today's problem. It doesn't fix the conditions that caused it.
So once a site is clean and hardened, the sensible next step is hosting that keeps it that way: active updates, security monitoring, regular hardening, and daily backups, so a future problem is caught early or rolled back rather than discovered too late. If you'd like, we’ll move the rescued site onto one of our managed hosting plans and look after it from there.
There's no obligation. You're free to take the clean site elsewhere. But it’s the recommendation we’d give a friend, because a rescue without a change of habits just buys a few months.
Pricing
Quoted once we've seen what we're dealing with.
A security rescue can't be priced from a list. A site with a single injected file is a quick job; a site that's been compromised for months, with malware spread through every corner, is a much bigger one. The only figure worth having is one based on your site.
So the first step is an assessment. We look at the site, work out how deep the problem goes, and give you a clear price for the work before any of it begins. No work starts without an agreed figure, and there are no surprise extras once it has.
If your site is one we already host and look after, this kind of problem is far less likely to arise in the first place, and if it ever did, rescue cover is part of what managed hosting includes.
Where the edges are
What we can and can’t promise you.
A hacked website is a horrible thing to deal with, and the last thing you need is a service overpromising. So, plainly:
We can almost always recover a site.
Between cleaning, hardening, and restoring from backups, the large majority of compromised sites can be brought back safely. Unrecoverable cases are rare.
We can't undo what already happened.
If data was exposed during the breach, the rescue secures the site going forward, but it can't un-expose information. Where a compromise may involve personal data, there can be obligations under UK GDPR, and we’ll flag it plainly so you can take the right advice.
We can't promise it will never happen again.
No one can. What we can do is close the specific gap that was used, harden the site, and, with managed hosting, keep watching. That moves the odds dramatically in your favour, which is the realistic goal.
Related services
The rest of the Host pillar.
Once a rescued site is clean, these are the services that keep it that way.
Managed WordPress Hosting
Fast, secure, fully managed WordPress hosting: daily backups, security monitoring, and the updates and hardening that keep a site healthy. The natural home for a site once it's been rescued.
App & Static Website Hosting
A static site has no database and no plugins, which is why some clients move to one after a compromise.
Domain Registration & Management
Domains registered and managed on your behalf, with DNS and renewals handled, so a lapsed domain or a DNS mistake never becomes its own kind of emergency.
Dealing with a hacked site right now?
Get in touch and we'll tell you where you stand. The first conversation costs nothing, and even if the news isn't what you hoped, you'll know exactly what you're dealing with and what it would take to put right. If it's urgent, the quickest route is the phone.