How to clean malware off your site

Picture the scene, you are just about to hop on a call, you have a few minutes to spare so you decide to do a quick check of your emails when you see this…

Site Hacked, Malware has been detected on your site.

Woman looking at the laptop screen in frustration

Dread fills the pit of your stomach and you blast some “colourful” language at the computer.

This is exactly what happened to me the morning of writing this post. I also had a jam-packed schedule for the day and quite frankly, didn’t need this shit!

What is malware exactly?

It’s malicious code that is somehow embedded into your site. It is specifically designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to a computer system. It could be a virus, trojan horse, ransomware, worms or spyware. Basically, it’s all bad stuff!

What if malware isn’t removed?

Worst case scenario, you lose access to your site. The site could have a redirect set up so people landing there will get directed to some dodgy/scam/porn site.

Your Google ranking will get hit, if Google deems your site unsafe they are not going to promote it.

Your client’s data could be stolen and heaven knows what they do with that!

And the longer it’s on there the worse it gets for your site, so basically, as soon as you know it’s there, you need to clean the malware off.

Back to the story. We need to rewind a bit…

About 10 months ago I discovered some funky stuff going on on one of my websites. At first, I thought it was just a glitch but I couldn’t get to the bottom of it.

At the same time and every week, I do my accounts and update my sites and clean my Mac. It is my business housekeeping if you like. Not a fun morning but it keeps everything in order.

Except for this time it didn’t. Eventually, I got onto my hosting company, Siteground and they did their magic. Came back and told me that there was Malware on the site and so the site would need to be cleaned.

Of course, I went off to Google to see how to clean malware but decided it was out of my wheelhouse and the best course of action was to pay someone to do it.

Siteground recommended two places, the first was slightly cheaper but their customer service was terrible. And so I hired Malcare to do the job.

I’m not sure exactly how to clean malware but Malcare cleaned it all up and scanned it again to give it a clean bill of health.

This made me realise that I really should be doing more to keep my sites safe. After shopping around I decided Malcare was the best option.

Since the initial malware issue, until today, there have been no problems, I check the Malcare dashboard every week, one thing that I love about it is that I can update all themes and plugins from my dashboard, and I don’t have to log into each site to do it.

I did have auto updates on my plugins until some incident where the was a battle of the plugins and something broke. Now I find it easier/safer to update them manually!

Young woman looking at the laptop screen in dismay.

Fast Forward To This Morning

I open my inbox and see a message from Malcare stating that malware had been detected on one of my sites and that it needed immediate attention.

Unlike last time when I had to throw everything else on my schedule out of the window. This time I hopped on my call, explained what was happening and that I had a window open as the software could do its thing.

Clicked the ‘clean site’ option in the dashboard and Malcare did its job.

30 minutes into my call, the site was declared clean, the malicious code had been removed and all was well with the world.

Do I need malware protection?

I think this is somewhat like insurance, you can hedge your bets and not buy the insurance and nine times out of ten, everything will be fine. But there is always that one time when…

For pure peace of mind, I feel that it is worth it. Especially having gone through today’s incident.

I’m pretty sure back in the day, I could clean it off myself. I am fairly techie and not afraid of rolling up my sleeves and getting the job done BUT I am 100% sure it would take me a lot longer and there would be the stress of ballsing something up, which is also a big possibility!

But these days, hackers have evolved and gotten way more sneaky in their tactics. It is much more difficult now to identify where the malicious code has been embedded and how to clean malware isn’t always straightforward either!

So yes, I do think it is a good idea to have something in place. I have only used Malcare and to date have no issues with them at all. I use the PLUS plan for 3 sites. for that I get:

Automatic Malware Scans
Scan Frequency – 24 hours
Instant Malware Removal
Real-time Firewall
Bot Protection
Vulnerability Scans
Uptime Monitoring
Daily Automatic Backups
Integrated Staging Site
Activity Logs
Visual Regression Testing
Personalized Support

If you want to know more, check them out here. I have found it all easy to use so even if you are not a techie, you will be able to