I’ve had some friends get their website hacked with a nefarious little code snippet that attempts to exploit the browser of visitors.  The site looks no different, but that’s the point.  Its difficult to tell that you’ve been hacked.Now, the fix I’ll suggest won’t work very well for dynamic websites.  It reads all of the website files and generates a hash.  That hash can be monitored by a desktop program.  I personally monitor my sites every 30 minutes.  Knock on wood that I won’t need to be informed.  However, I’ve set it up to email me in the case of hack where the hash doesn’t match.

  1.  Get the PHP hash generating code from WebsiteCDS (hosted by google code)
  2. Setup info is in the readme – however I suggest you change the email address and password before uploading it to the root of your website.
  3. Type in the websitecds.php location in your address bar with the password as required in the readme (READ the README)
  4. I liked the SiteUp website checker for windows, and use it to check for the hash.  In fact, I have it setup to run the websitecds.php script with the expected hash.  (Other die hards use cron and a script)
  5. Remember to update your hash everytime you change or add things to your website.  Otherwise you will be getting error messages and/or emails.
  6. Rest easy that you’ll know if you’re hacked.

Good luck.  And I hope your ISP is quick on the patches.
–Ben
References:
Webdigi - Web Development Company in London
Google Code - Website CDS (Change Detection System)
Xequte.com - SiteUp -Check if your website is up, even if you aren’t

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