Is Your WordPress Site At Risk? How You Can Remove Malicious Or Unwanted Software Issues?
WordPress is, by far, the most popular way to build a website. This popularity has an unfortunate side effect of making WordPress sites a target for malicious. And you might wonder whether WordPress is secure enough to handle risks or not. This subject has been at the core of discussion for a long time.
Have you ever imagined how badly your day, week or month can get if your website at risk? Before getting to know what makes WordPress secure or not, let’s go through a quick list of most common security risks. If you own a WordPress-powered website, you may be alarmed about possible WordPress security issues.
SQL Injection
Since WordPress websites use the MySQL database, this kind of attack takes place often. It happens when security susceptibilities are exploited and attackers access your data, change or even destroy it.
Malware
Malicious software accesses your data by implementing code in an expired plugin or theme. The hackers hack your data or insert malicious content into your WordPress website.
Brute Force Attack
A brute force attack is a process of trial-and-error used for obtaining personal information such as passwords and PINs. Cybercriminals attempt this by typing in various usernames and passwords until they find the right combination.
DDoS Attack
A DDoS attack takes place by maliciously overflowing a website with traffic, rendering it unable to serve content to potential visitors. It’s done from various machines compromise by an attacker using malware, making it difficult to resolve and locate.
Cross-Site Scripting
It is also known as an XSS attack and often found in WordPress plugins. The attacker inserts JavaScript code to collect data from the website. It can also redirect the website to other malicious websites.
Steps To Remove Malware From Your WordPress Site
Getting rid of malware from a WordPress website that is at risk is not an easy task. However, if you’re cleaning a site yourself, here are steps help you removing malicious software issues.
- Backup the site files and Database.
- Download and examine the backup files.
- Delete all the files in the public_html folder using the web host’s File Manager.
- Reinstall WordPress with the one-click installer in your web hosting control panel.
- Login to the website to reset passwords and permalinks. Go to Settings > Permalinks and click Save Changes. Make sure to rest all FTP and hosting account passwords as well.
- Reinstall your plugins from the WordPress repository or fresh downloads from the premium plugin developer. Never install old plugins that are no longer maintained.
- Reinstall themes from a fresh download. Don’t upload old themes, as you may not recognize which files have been hacked.
- Upload your images from the backup.
- Scan your computer for viruses, trojans, and malware.
- Install and activate security plugins.
Moreover, stay tuned with Google Console notices as well as any error logs you find on the server after you clean up. You can check your Raw Access Logs on the server to track users accessing files on site.
