denisl - 8:03 am on Sep 23, 2012 (gmt 0)

In my case it was my wife who alerted me. She is one of those who never accesses anything directly - just types everything into Google.
As for the htacccess file - I didn't see what was in it. In my panic, one of the first things i did was to re-upload the file and replace what was there. That was a year or two ago and have had no further problems.

I shall look at Leosgost's link - sounds a very good idea.