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I just want to know that when someone says their website was hacked, does that mean:

1)They changed the DNS
2)They got the ftp and changed files
3)They hacked the database

and even if they got FTP details, it's very easy to change the password.

Where is the problem?

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This question is too broad. When someone says "our web site was hacked!" it could mean anything including, but not limited to, the things you've stated in your question. – joeqwerty Dec 4 '10 at 3:15
It means that all your base are belong to Russian intertube gangsters. – WesleyDavid Dec 4 '10 at 6:12
The most common item, which is not even listed in the question, is that the actual web page content has been altered. – John Gardeniers Feb 8 '11 at 21:53
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closed as not a real question by jscott, John Gardeniers, Ben Pilbrow, Iain♦, DJ Pon3 Feb 8 '11 at 22:20

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

3 Answers

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At its most accurate, it means that some vulnerability in a system somewhere was exploited, and someone managed to modify or replace public-facing content served via HTTP.

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"They got the ftp" doesn't quite mean anything. Do you mean they got the username/password used for FTP access to the files that make up the web site? Not all web sites are accessed that way (thank goodness, in this day and age, because FTP is not a secure protocol).

Changing the DNS is external, and therefore doesn't usually count — but it would be legitimate to say the website's DNS was hacked.

Changing the password is fine if you can be certain that you know what was done. But how do you know they didn't use the local unprivileged ftp access to escalate to root/administrator access? With that access, they could install a very hard to detect kernel-level backdoor. Even without root access, are you sure they didn't leave a trap in some of your files?

The same goes for database access.

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i was just thining about wikileaks. i mean how did it got hacked – John Dec 4 '10 at 6:12
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"They copied all the information we had - client data, e-mail addresses, credit card numbers, our internal documents." Where is the problem?

"They are serving malware from our servers, so our domains and IP addresses are now blacklisted." Where is the problem?

"They are using our systems for their own purposes, and now we have here some guys from Interpol asking weird questions about child pornography we seem to have on our servers." Where is the problem?

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