Discovering if your website has been hacked can be done very simple by going to your website, viewing the source file and going all the way to the bottom, right above the </body> tag. If your website has been hacked, you will see a javascript tag with the one of the following URL in it:

//www.indesignstudioinfo.com/ls.php
//zettapetta.com/js.php

If you are using WordPress, logging into your dashboard you will find that it does not display properly. Having your dashboard not displaying properly is a good indication your website has been recently hacked.
If your website has been hacked, there is something you can do about it. You can find directions on how to remove the malware code that has been added to every PHP file on your website by going to http://blog.sucuri.net/2010/05/new-attack-today-against-wordpress.html. There are step by step directions on how to run a script written by Sucuri Security to remove this malware code.

Once you have the code remove, clear the cookies, history and cache saved by your browser. It is not known what information this malware javascript is trying to collect (or what it function is), but clearing these items should keep you safe. You may also want to run your anti-virus software to make sure your computer is clean.
After you have cleaned your browser cache, cookies, and history, you should log into WordPress and change your password. This is just a safety precaution.
I am planning on posting a few security tips for WordPress in the next few days. Come back soon to learn a few steps you can take to help keep your WordPress website safe from being hacked. If you have any questions or if your website has been hacked and what to share how you were able remove the malware, please leave a comment. Sharing knowledge helps to build a safer and more reliable Internet.

A few weeks ago I installed the newest version of WordPress on my web host server, which I use 1and1 web hosting services. Everything was great, until I saw the message at the top of my WordPress dashboard saying there is an updated version available. I clicked on the link to updating my site because I feel it’s important to have the latest version available for reasons such as security, bug fixes, and ensure newer versions of the plug ins I use are compatible.

Once I clicked on the link to updated my WordPress software, I got the message that WordPress was initiating the update. I waited and waited and waited some more, nothing happened. I decided to click on the dashboard and found over half the usual dashboard content missing. I was bewildered by this. I needed to know what went wrong and how to solve this problem so I wouldn’t have this issue in the future.
What I uncovered was that 1and1 web servers defaults to php 4. WordPress will run on php 4, but it is designed to take advantage of php 5. What the issue was was with not being about to update WordPress and a large portion of my dashboard missing, was WordPress was looking to take advantage of php 5 and was not able to do so.

The fix for the problem is relatively easy. It requires you to edit your .htaccess file a bit in order to tell the 1and1 web server that you want it to run your website using php 5, not php 4. I would recommend downloading your .htaccess to your hard drive and open it using any website editing program, such as Dreamweaver. If you do not have a website editing program, notepad (Window Users) or TextEdit (Mac Users) will also work.

Once you open the file, you will see that it starts with # BEGIN WordPress and ends with # END WordPress. For our needs, the information between these two tags isn’t important. What is important is after the # END WordPress, these two lines of code are added.

AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php

These two lines of code will tell your 1and1 server that you want it to use php 5 as it’s default php version instead of php4. These two lines should also be used in a .htaccess file if you are coding a website using php 5 to be hosted on a 1and1 web server.

Save the changes to the file and upload the changes to your 1and1 website host server. Go back to your WordPress administrator page and click on the update link now. It should update your software and fix the dashboard so everything that was there before, is there once again.

I hope that helps. If there are any other topics you would like me to discuss on WordPress or 1and1 website hosting problems, feel free to let me know in a comment below. Also let me know if you find this useful and would like me to continue posting tricks and solutions I have learned.