.htaccess Hacking in Joomla

I have a good number of Joomla websites that are hacked by hackers.

Generally, the website ends up been slower in performance. However, there are times where the websites are total defaced.

Most common hacking attempts can be easily reversed by going to index.php (either in the default root directory or the template directory) and simply delete the hacking codes. That's the most common remedy.

Another one is the .htaccess hacking. The hacker inserts .htaccess file into your directories and using mod_rewrite, it redirects your web pages (including images, javascript files, etc) to their destinated website. This either causes slow performance or website to hang.

The remedy to the above hacking is to find and locate every .htaccess file in your website and delete them away. Each directory only have at most 1 .htaccess so you would probably have to move around most of your directories to locate them. The .htaccess file will most probably be placed in common directories such as /images, /templates, etc.

After you have solved and resumed your Joomla website, you will need to update your Joomla version to the latest one. You should change your password for FTP and your hosting account access too.