WordPress Malware Removal

1. What Is Malware

Malware is often small software which intends to harm your PC or Applications. In terms of WordPress, it is a script which usually damages your site and cause loss of control, which may result your site being redirecting to another site. Malware also tries to control data from your site.

2. How to check if your site has malware

There are lots of plugins and tools which are available on the web by which you can check and clean your site of any Malware attack. Amongst those there are few tools and plugins which are free and are very efficient and a very easy way to clean your site.
To start, you have to first check if your site has any Malware issues. You can do this by entering your site url in this link, https://sitecheck.sucuri.net. It is almost accurate but there may be a difference in the result in few cases. If you do find some Malware, you will see them in 5 different stages as follows, Minimal, Low, Medium, High and Critical. Minimal and Low are common results due to shared hosting but if you find your site to be in any of the latter stages, you need to pay immediate attention.

If you still have access to your site, install these following plugins to check and clean your site’s vulnerability.
a. MalCare security plugin
b. WordFence Plugin
c. Sucuri Plugin

MalCare

1. Your website will not slow down with this scanner
2. Your infected website can be fixed in 1 minute
3. Smart firewall will give your Real-Time protection
4. WordPress site hardening is built in
5. Single dashboard to manage your site
6.Malcare is not just a security plugin, it is a Service

WordFence

Available two-factor authentication (2FA) is one of the most secure forms of remote system authentication.
You can use any TOTP-based authenticator apps or services, like Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password and FreeOTP.
You can enable 2FA for any WordPress user.
No limits or restrictions of any kind and completely free to use.
You can easily enable Google ReCAPTCHA v3 on your login and registration pages.
Without causing inconvenience to your site visitors, you can stop bots from logging in.
Robust protection from password-guessing and credential stuffing attacks is distributed across large IP-pools.
Although often overlooked XML-RPC is the biggest target for WordPress attacks.
You can disable XML-RPC if it not needed or Protect with 2FA

Sucuri

1. Auditing of Security Activity
2. Monitoring of File Integrity
3. Scanning of Remote Malware
4. Monitoring of Blacklist
5. Effective Hardening of Security
6. Security Actions for Post-Hack
7. Notifications of Security Concerns
8. Premium Website Firewall

So far we have mentioned about the third party plugins and how these can help you find and clean malwares on your site. Now we will show you how to do the same without any plugins.

3. How to clear them.

The malware, by default, is injected in the .htaccess file or in the WP core files. First check your .htaccess file for any suspicious code. If you are unsure about the code, copy the following code into your .htaccess file

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPress

In the case where you have multiple site or domain, follow this link for the default code:  link

It is very important to acknowledge that any cache or other codes previously copied into that .htaccess file will be removed which may cause temporary effects in the site’s loading time. To get your desired loading speed back again and to resolve the temporary issue, follow this article link:

The next step is to upload fresh new WP core files of your website. Download the core file from the WordPress Core page (https://wordpress.org/download) and upload this to your hosting root path. If you do not have enough confidence to do it yourself, then ask for an expert’s supervision. You also must remove the wp-content folder from the core folder before replacing it with the existing core.

These steps will remove those malicious codes that you found in the beginning.
After applying these processes, you should check each file for any unusual or unknown codes. You should also delete any users who do not have any relation to your site, particularly ones with admin access.

4. How to enhance your site security for a future malware attacks.

a. Use Google Recaptcha for every form on your website.
b. Hide your default wp-admin login URL (wp-admin)
c. Make sure, only users with authorized access can comment and captcha is also enabled for comment forms.
d. Always use the latest version of themes and plugins.
e. The hosting server should have the latest and a stable PHP version.
f. The hosting server should have a firewall installed.

Now, I’m going to share a pro-level MalWare clean process which no one shared before on there Articles.

We will discuss tools which comes with paid futures but you can use their addons for a 7 days free trial without any cost or adding any cards.

BlogVault, Who have offer so many options come along with there paid packages like backup, staging, scan, update, etc.

There MalWare scanner is also free and with the free version, you can also know which files are infected or malicious on your site. So you can remove or reinstall them in order to make your site safe again.

First, you need to install their plugin on your site. After that create a free account here and connect your site with them.

After the scan, if your site has any issues, then you will get a result like this:

Now, click on that red circle section and you will see which files are malicious or infected with the malware.

Remove them or reinstall them as per your need and after that run the scan again. If you can clean them properly then you should have got a result like this:

Hope this information will help and save your sites from the outside attacker.

These are all primary topics we have shared with you from our experience. They may vary from site to site based on the Malware type. If you still need any help regarding your site’s MalWare issues, please feel free to contact us or call.