“Shakhtar Donetsk defeated Antwerp 1-0 in the Champions League group stage and guaranteed a place in the European Cup playoffs, Suspilne TV reported on Tuesday evening.
“Shakhtar Donetsk has won its third victory in the Champions League group stage. In the fifth round, the Pitmen beat Antwerp 1-0,” the report said.
It is noted that Shakhtar approached the match against the Belgian team in the status of the third team of Group H. Before this match, the Miners were six points behind Barcelona and Porto, who had nine points each, but retained their chances of the Champions League playoffs.
Together with the experts of the hosting company HostPro, we have created a material that will be useful to virtually everyone who deals with web resources: website owners and administrators, web developers, web designers, SEO specialists, marketers, and all Internet users.
After reading this article, you will be able to scan your website for viruses on your own, and you will also get effective tips on how to protect your resource from viruses and hacking.
A virus is essentially a malicious code that is installed on a website through security gaps. From our experience, we can say that statistically, most often viruses get to websites through the vulnerabilities of an unupdated CMS (80 percent of all cases), old versions of themes, plugins, installation of additional functions, use of themes and plugins downloaded from unreliable sources, and incorrect distribution of rights between administrators.
What can a virus infection lead to?
– Deletion of important files or changes to the database, which causes a breakdown in the website’s functionality;
– attackers gaining access to the content of your website or its complete administration – as a result, incomprehensible banners, phishing links to other websites, and redirects to third-party and not always legal resources may appear;
– slow loading of the website or even stopping its operation. This situation is usually caused by a high load on the server due to processes launched by malicious code (spamming, viruses, brute force attacks, mining, DDoS).
– theft from the database and leakage of confidential information of administrators and customers (names, emails, bank card details);
– if you do not notice the changes in time, the site may be sanctioned and lose its position in the search results or even stop being indexed and be blocked by the hosting or domain registrar.
How to check a website for viruses?
HostPro recommends several ways to check a website for viruses that do not require special technical skills and budgets.
– It is advisable to have an antivirus on your hosting. If infected files are detected, as well as programs whose structure is similar to those contained in the malware database, you will receive notifications with recommendations to your contact email.
A good scanner, such as ImunifyAV+, can even detect encrypted malicious code in files.
The Ukrainian host HostPro includes ImunifyAV+ antivirus in all hosting plans, you just need to activate it in the control panel or make a request to technical support, and it will be done for you.
– Google has a good tool for checking for infected files called Google Safe Browsing. Here you can check any website, even if you are not its administrator.
– If you are the site owner, you can simply check for notifications about dangerous content in your email or in your Google Search Console account ⇨ Security and manual measures ⇨ Security issues.
– There are also online services that can check for viruses on a website, such as Sucuri SiteCheck or VirusTotal. The method is simple and affordable, but the scan is superficial. Such tools usually do not scan the core of the site, so even simple viruses can slip through.
How do you know if your website is infected?
Here are some “symptoms” of your website being infected with malicious viruses:
– users report that they cannot access the site because it is blocked by their browsers and/or security programs;
– the website has been added to a database of malicious URLs;
– you see a significant change in traffic and/or a sharp deterioration in search engine rankings;
– the site displays errors; is slow or unavailable at all (please note that this may also be a sign that your domain or hosting has expired);
– users are redirected to another resource when they visit the site or follow internal links;
– additional content has appeared on the website: ads or pop-ups;
– virus notifications from the hosting provider;
– confidential data has been leaked from the website;
– new administrators have appeared in the admin panel to whom you did not grant access;
– the index file or other site files contain third-party code, it can be contained in the [iframe][/iframe] tags, as well as after [BODY] or [HTML].
Checklist for effective website protection against viruses and hacking
1. Install an SSL certificate on your website. Then your resource will work over a secure HTTPS connection. All information sent from your website will be encrypted, minimizing the chances of it being intercepted.
If you don’t have SSL installed on your site, users will see a notification that the connection is insecure instead of the content they need.
Some hosting companies resell SSL certificates, so you can ask your provider about the availability of this service. For example, HostPro can generate one for you and connect it to your website for free.
1. Come up with something more complicated than admin1 or QWERTY – you can use special services such as password generators. A strong password should not be related to words or dates from your biography, but should contain letters, numbers, and special characters. It’s a good habit to change your passwords every month.Also, try to ensure that each resource (e.g., website/blog/billing) and each site administrator has a unique password.
2. Restrict access to the login page for all IPs except those from which you and your colleagues work.
3. Monitor traffic from time to time, if it has dropped sharply, there is a possibility that users are being redirected from your site to another resource or that browsers or security systems simply do not allow access to your resource.Conversely, if traffic has increased, but the number of visitors and operations on the site has not changed, this is also a characteristic sign of a virus infection.4. Keep plugins, themes, and CMS systems up to date. If possible, you can enable auto-updates.
5. Do not install themes and plugins from unverified sources.Download them only from official repositories and reliable marketplaces.6. Host your website with a reliable hoster with antivirus in the tariff and DDoS protection. If you are not satisfied with the level of security on your current hosting, you can always migrate to reliable servers for free.
– Control what data users upload to your website. If customers need to upload files, specify the allowed extensions and the maximum allowable file size. Also, do not neglect scanning uploaded files as they may contain malware.- Install Git, a console utility that will track file changes in your project.If you need to “cure” the site from an infection, you can simply roll back the system in the SSH console to a clean version and deploy a database backup.
You can take a backup of your website from your hosting provider. You can also monitor it manually, but some viruses can change the date of file editing or simply hide so well that it is very difficult to find them on your own.
We advise you to choose a hoster who makes backups of all the sites on the server at least once a day, preferably for free. With HostPro, for example, you can get any archive of your site for the previous 30 days.
In conclusion.
The inability of a business to protect its website from viruses can have negative financial, reputational, and technical consequences and affect its long-term competitiveness.
There are universal recommendations that you can follow to significantly reduce the risk of viruses getting on your website, including installing an SSL certificate, periodically updating CMS, themes, and plugins (because developers eliminate vulnerabilities in each new version that existed in previous versions), and choosing a reliable hosting provider with an antivirus in the tariff.
We also recommend installing Git on your website to be able to deploy a backup of your site data in case of emergency, and to give preference to hosting providers that make automatic backups of websites every day.
If it has already happened that malicious code has been injected into your website:
1. Change the passwords for logging in.2. Temporarily restrict access and rights to files and folders.3. Scan for malware with an anti-virus scanner, view a security report in Google Search Console, or contact your host’s support team for help and follow the instructions sent to you by email.
4. Check the .htaccess file in the root folder to see if there are any redirects configured.If a redirect to a third-party site is found, delete the section starting with RewriteEngine On and save the changes.
5. Roll back the system to a clean version using Git and deploy database backups (you can take them from the hosting control panel).
Order secure hosting with SSL certificate, antivirus and DDoS protection with promo code ITTA-20.The offer is valid for all shared hosting plans until 12/31/2024.
Google Safe Browsing, Google Search Console, HostPro, SSL certificate, Sucuri SiteCheck, VirusTotal.
Alyona Piskunova, conceptologist at DIM Group of Companies
Three things that really help developers sell apartments in new buildings today
Since the beginning of the full-scale war, Ukrainian developers in the primary real estate market have faced two extremely difficult challenges. The first was to survive and maintain their positions, i.e. the team, to support those who went to the army to defend the country, to defrost the sites in time and not to lose the pace of construction. The second is to survive in conditions of limited demand, and in particularly difficult periods of almost zero interest in buying apartments.
We all remember well the first half of 2022, then the period of massive rocket attacks in the fall and winter of last year – when the volume of demand fell significantly, and the number of transactions was measured in units, at best dozens of apartments, provided that you build liquid projects on time and quickly and the concepts of the residential complex fully satisfy the buyer’s request today.
Fortunately, since the spring of 2023, to be precise, since the end of May, after the end of the missile terror on the capital, the capital’s real estate market has been experiencing a period of restrained optimism: sales in the comfort+ segment, provided that the project is actively under construction, are growing by 5-6% per month. For example, we have managed to return more than 40% of the pre-war sales volumes.
However, there are three things behind these figures. First of all, there is noticeable construction activity on the sites, which is now one of the priority selection criteria. Over 95% of buyers, according to our observations, over the past six months, have cited construction activity and the developer’s reputation as important for making their final choice.
The second key point is the liquidity of the format and complex. It is important for people to see not imaginary renders, but the concept of living space, where zoning and filling the territory with functions and infrastructure meets all their everyday needs, and planning solutions are ergonomic and comfortable for life.
The most liquid formats are multifunctional cluster, eco-city and multifunctional complex with the concept of a 15-minute city. The most popular are the European layouts from 45 to 85 sq.m., necessarily a large kitchen-living room of 20 sq.m., isolated bedrooms, and two bathrooms for 2-3-bedroom apartments.
And the third point that contributes to the gradual recovery in demand is the company’s willingness to make concessions and offer flexible purchase terms. In fact, today, sales are sufficiently high for those who, thanks to a sustainable financial model, can offer a long-term installment program of 3 years or more.
Understanding the request for financial leverage from the developer, we have developed an installment program for 7 years at 0%. At the same time, the so-called “stability year” with fixed minimum payments ($300/month for 1K apartments;
400$/month – for 2K apartments; 600$/month – for 3K apartments), and then installments without overpayments for up to 4 years. Down payment from 30%.
Such programs are becoming a financial incentive to buy today and increase the volume of effective demand. For the buyer, this is also a signal that the developer’s financial model is stable enough for the company to be ready to share the burden with him. After all, it is clear that it is more profitable to sell for 100% payment and receive funds here and now. However, challenging times require difficult but significant decisions: today it is extremely important to support each other and be in partnership with the buyer.
Commissioning of housing in Ukraine in January-September 2023 increased by 13% compared to the same period in 2022 – up to 5 million 451.7 thousand square meters, the State Statistics Service reported.
According to the report, since the beginning of the year, 3 million 258.4 thousand square meters of housing (59.8% of the total) have been put into operation in cities, and 2 million 193.3 thousand square meters in rural areas.
In total, 66.5 thousand apartments were commissioned during the reporting period, which is 9.2% more than in January-September 2022. At the same time, 16 thousand apartments were commissioned in single-family houses, 50.5 thousand – in apartment buildings.
In the first nine months of the year, most housing was commissioned in Kyiv region (over 1 million square meters, 18.5% of the total), Kyiv (837.9 thousand square meters, 15.4%), Lviv region (542.3 thousand square meters), Vinnytsia region (506.8 thousand square meters), Ivano-Frankivsk region (402.3 thousand square meters) and Zakarpattia region (263.1 thousand square meters).
According to the statistics, the growth in housing starts was recorded in all regions of Ukraine, except for five regions. Kharkiv region showed the largest year-on-year increase, with 186.4 thousand square meters commissioned in January-September, up 385.8% year-on-year.
At the same time, five regions recorded a drop in the volume of housing commissioned. Thus, 217.6 thousand square meters were commissioned in Odesa region, which is 57.2% less than in January-September 2022, 105 thousand square meters in Poltava region (-46.8%), 7.9 thousand square meters in Zaporizhzhia region (-25.3%), 47.2 thousand square meters in Chernihiv region (-21.6%), and 79.5 thousand square meters in Zhytomyr region (-11.1%).
The data are given taking into account the housing commissioned in accordance with the temporary procedure for commissioning houses built without a building permit, the State Statistics Service reminds. Also, the information is given without taking into account the territories temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation and part of the territories where hostilities are (were) conducted.
As reported, the commissioning of housing in Ukraine in 2022 decreased by 37.8% compared to 2021 – to 7 million 110.2 thousand square meters.
The synchronization of the Ukrainian and European power systems has been successfully completed, ENTSO-E, the network of Continental European transmission system operators, has announced.
“The transmission system operators of continental Europe are pleased to announce that Ukrenergo, the Ukrainian system operator, has achieved compliance with the key technical requirements necessary to ensure a permanent connection between the power systems of continental Europe and Ukraine,” ENTSO-E said on Tuesday.
“ENTSO-E welcomes the new level of cooperation between the operators of continental Europe and Ukrenergo. This development not only strengthens regional energy security, but also contributes to a more integrated and more efficient energy market,” said Zbignek Boldis, President of ENTSO-E.
According to him, it also emphasizes the ongoing efforts to ensure a resilient and integrated electricity grid and to promote cooperation between European transmission system operators.
As noted on the website, emergency synchronization with the European power system took place on March 16, 2022, and since then Ukrenergo has made extraordinary efforts in difficult wartime conditions to achieve full compliance with the operating rules.
“For its part, Ukrenergo explained that the technical conditions – the Catalog of Measures – were enshrined in the Agreement on the Conditions for the Future Interconnection of the Power Systems of Ukraine and Continental Europe, signed in 2017. The catalog contains more than 200 technical measures in 9 areas. All of these measures are an integral part of the Framework Agreement on the Synchronous Area of the Continental Europe (SAFA), to which Ukrenergo also joins.
“We highly appreciate today’s decision, and I am confident that this achievement will help to significantly increase the flexibility and reliability of our network, as well as create the preconditions for expanding cooperation. This is the result of many years of hard work, which became especially challenging after the outbreak of a full-scale war. We are grateful to ENTSO-E for its constant support and trust throughout this time,” said Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, Chairman of the Board of NPC Ukrenergo, as quoted in the company’s release.
As reported, on the same day, ENTSO-E decided to expand the technical conditions for electricity imports from Europe to Ukraine and Moldova from 1200 MW to 1700 MW.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed the law on the state budget for 2024.
According to the card of the relevant draft law No. 10000 posted on the website of the Verkhovna Rada, the document was returned to the parliament with the signature of the head of state on November 28.
As reported, on November 9, the Verkhovna Rada adopted as a whole the draft law No. 10000 on the state budget for 2024.
