Is your website a ranking platform for prescription drugs? Or the characters are seen on Google in Japanese? Or, maybe, are any of your pages redirected to another website? They seem to have hacked your site, my friend!
Although a hacked site can be manually tackled, it’s a long and repetitive process. And on your website, any malware clean-up delay can spell a disaster. Google will blacklist your website in order to prevent Google users from accessing your hacked site. Your hosting company will suspend your domain in order to protect other clients from the consequences of a compromised website. To avoid a domino effect like that, your best option is to use a WordPress malware removal plugin.
But there’s a catch here as well. Your fear-infused quest for a malware removal plugin can easily go awry. You can end up with a super expensive, unreliable tool that also has a long processing time.
It can be a nightmare to patch a hacked WordPress site without the right method. This is why we evaluated the most popular WordPress malware removal plugins and checked their turnaround time along with a few other features that go into making an efficient malware removal plugin.
TL;DR
If your website is hacked and infected with malware, you can clean it immediately using our WordPress malware removal plugin – MalCare. The plugin comes with an industry-first one-click malware removal option. And after cleaning your site, MalCare will continue to protect your website against future hack attempts.
How to Select WordPress Malware Removal Plugin?
Given the number of options available, it can be hard to choose a good malware removal plugin. Knowing what to look for can make the job easy. Here’s what a good WordPress malware removal plugin will offer:
1. Complete Malware Removal
WordPress websites were easy back in the day, and they only consisted of a handful of files, directories, and tables of databases. There were restricted ways for hackers to conceal their malicious codes. A plugin will quickly find and delete malicious code from WordPress files and directories if a website has been hacked.
Yet WordPress has developed into a more dynamic community over the years. Building a WordPress website and maintaining it is still simple, but the backend has become a growing system with complex components that use hundreds of files, directories, and database tables to run.
A large number of files, directories, and configured database tables must now be searched by plugins.
Unfortunately, some plugins for malware removal do use obsolete methods for detecting and cleaning malware. They scan for places that hackers used a long time ago to conceal malware. And when they are situated elsewhere, they fail to detect malware.
To locate and terminate the malware, you need a malware remover that looks into every nook and corner of your WordPress website.
2. Removal of New & Complex Malware
A specific signature or pattern bears any malware. A reference list of documented trends is used for most malware removal plugins. It will mark it as malware if it finds a code that matches its list. It will warn you so you can clean it.
It might sound like a good way to detect and clean up malware, but you can not find fresh and complex malware by matching patterns. An entirely fresh collection of signatures comes with new kinds of malware. In addition, while maintaining the power to carry out malicious acts, hackers may alter the pattern. Fresh, complex, and unknown malware is not discovered by plugins that only depend on signature or pattern matching.
In addition, in ways that go undetected by pattern matching plugins, hackers have learned to mask malicious codes.
To find and delete malware, choose a plugin that does not rely on old-school methods.
It can be a nightmare to patch a hacked WordPress website – without the required tool. Tap To Tweet Click
3. Instant Malware Removal
A cleaner’s core role is to remove and easily remove malware. Other disasters, such as Google blacklisting and web host suspension, can be set in motion by delays in malware removal. And yet, since they are connected to a mechanism that goes something like this, several plugins struggle to clean a hacked website fast.
You have to contact the creators of the malware removal plugin until you figure out that your website contains malware, and lift a ticket describing your finding and demanding a cleanup. One of the developers will review your website and then begin to clean it up. The turnaround time of this approach can range from a few hours to a couple of days.
This is why we recommend an instant automated method of clean-up. The drawbacks of the existing method should be considered by a plugin and provide a better solution.
We have detailed 5 of the malware removal plugins that we think you should consider, based on the above factors.
5 Best WordPress Malware Removal Plugins
1. MalCare Security Plugin
Loved by thousands of developers and agencies, the first plugin to deliver an instant automated cleaner is MalCare. This makes it the best plugin out there to uninstall the malware. Before Google blacklists it or your WordPress host takes it down, it cleans your website.
What Stands Out?
Instant Malware Removal: Knowing the perils of a delay, MalCare offers an instant cleaner that will help clean your website quickly. The cleaner is automated hence you don’t have to raise a ticket and wait on a developer to clean your site.
Removes New & Complex Malware: The plugin does not just look for known patterns and signatures, it examines the code very closely to find new and complex malicious codes that go undetected in many other popular malware removal plugins.
Complete Malware Removal: Malware can be found in both files and the database on your WordPress website. You can rely on MalCare to detect and remove malware from files as well as the database.
Drawbacks
When MalCare finds a particular menacing malware with complex code, it prompts you to alert the team who’d manually check the malicious code before removing it.
2. Sucuri
The most common security plugin for WordPress is Sucuri. The malware removal of Sucuri operates not only on WordPress but also on other sites such as Joomla, Magento, Drupal, etc.
What Stands Out?
Removes Website Malware: Sucuri removes malware infections from your files and database. It removes malicious codes, files, link injections, and SEO spam keywords.
Removes Blacklist Status: The plugin will submit blacklist removal requests on your behalf in case you were blacklisted by Google or other search engines.
Platform Agnostic: The malware removal service is not limited to WordPress. It’ll clean your site even if it’s hosted on other CMS’ like Joomla and Drupal.
Drawbacks
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- The initial response time is slow which can be an extremely frustrating experience.
- The process of getting your website clean is time-consuming. You have to contact the team who’d assign security personnel to access your site. The personnel will investigate your site and then proceed to clean it.
3. Wordfence
Another reputed WordPress protection plugin is Wordfence. A worthy highlight of the plugin is that to delete malware from your WordPress website, it consults search engines such as Google.
What Stands Out?
Complete Malware Removal: Wordfence removes malicious codes and links from posts, pages even comments left on your website.
In-Depth Investigation Report: After removing the malware, Wordfence offers an in-depth report on what they found while investigating and removing malicious codes from your hacked WordPress sites.
Investigates Vulnerabilities: Quiet often websites are hacked due to vulnerabilities present on your website. Wordfence investigates and reports on how the hackers gained entry.
Drawbacks
The malware removal process is time-consuming which can lead to frustration. Moreover, delays in cleanups can snowball the situation.
4. SiteLock
SiteLock was created in 2008 and provides security measures for WordPress and Joomla. The plugin champions automation and thus provides steps of automatic cleaning and hack protection.
What Stands Out?
Automatic Malware Removal: Depending on the security package you subscribe to, SiteLock will clean malware from your website automatically.
Automated Vulnerability Patching: When enabled, the plugin will patch security vulnerabilities found on your WordPress core files automatically.
Drawbacks
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- Many site owners have complained about SiteLock’s deceptive billing practices.
- The plugin fails in early malware detection and on occasion, has failed to remove malware completely.
5. Quttera
Almost a decade ago, Quttera was introduced. Ever since then, the solution has cleaned up hundreds of thousands of WordPress pages. Quttera also scans Joomla, Magento, and Drupal blogs, in addition to WordPress websites.
What Stands Out?
Complete Malware Removal: Malware analysts from the Quttera web malware scanner will access your website, investigate and clean your infected website to ensure there are no leftovers.
Google Blacklist Removal: If your website is blacklisted, the plugin shoulders the responsibility of requesting Google Search blacklist removal.
Drawbacks
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- The process to remove malware can be time-consuming. After you detect malware infection on your website, you will have to log into your Quttera dashboard and fill in a form. After submitting the form, a malware analyst is assigned to your website who then investigates and proceeds to clean the WordPress site.
Is Removing Malware Enough to Secure Your Site?
No, it isn’t! Cleaning your website will not guarantee that your website is safe from future hack attempts. But you can take certain measures to ensure that your website is being protected 24×7.
i. Keep Your Website Updated
You will receive updates to the heart, plugins, and themes on the WordPress website. It can be irritating to get so many updates, so site owners prefer to miss updates and are unaware of the harm that this can do.
They release a patch in the form of an update when developers find security holes in a theme, plugin, or even the heart. The security holes remain unpatched when you miss an update, leaving your website vulnerable to a hacking attempt.
This is why keeping your website updated is so critical. To update your WordPress website, make sure you take time out every week.
ii. Protect Your WordPress Login Page
Rather than any other page on a website, hackers are targeting the WordPress login page. They program bots to correctly guess the login credentials. Hundreds of popular credentials can be tried out by a bot within a minute. If your credentials are cracked by a bot, then a hacker can gain access to your site. They will carry out their misdeeds using your website, which would have serious consequences on you.
By using CAPTCHA security, you can secure your WordPress login page. CAPTCHA security should already be available on your website if you install MalCare, which is our first option among WordPress malware removal plugins. After 3 unsuccessful login attempts, for a fixed period of time, MalCare prevents the user from accessing the login page. This means that after a few attempts, bots will be blocked from targeting your login page.
iii. Set Up a Firewall
If you could detect and prevent bots from attempting to access your login page in the first place, would it be great? A firewall for WordPress will help you do exactly that. The firewall filters traffic that comes to your website. Malicious-intention traffic will be blocked and your website will be allowed to access the rest.
This will secure the whole website and not just the login tab.
The website firewall is automatically activated if you are using a security plugin like MalCare.
iv. Harden Your Website
The security of a WordPress website is a collaborative endeavor, one involving the security plugin and the user. The more security steps you take, the higher the chances that hackers and bots will be held out.
In order to harden your website, WordPress recommends taking those steps. You’d have to have technical knowledge of WordPress to enforce those steps. So, using a plugin such as MalCare, it’s best to take website hardening steps.
v. Take Regular Backups
Although you should take every security precaution that you can, there can be mishaps. Websites can be compromised and data that can spell catastrophe for a WooCommerce website can be lost. But if you have a backup, it will guarantee that your data is not lost. You can restore your website back to normal in times of need.
That said, it’s not easy to choose a good backup plugin. Here is a guide that can help you find the best plugins to back up WordPress.
With that, we come to the end of how to make sure that in the future your website stays safe.
Final Thoughts
When you have to make a decision on which malware removal plugin to get, a lot of factors can come into play. This may include the safety characteristics of the plugin, the clean-up time it takes, your budget, etc.
You need a plugin that will allow you to clean up the hack quickly and efficiently if your site is hacked. While all plugins have their own benefits and drawbacks, MalCare is the one that ticks all the right boxes for us.
It is easy to set up the plugin and it automatically searches your website for WordPress. Finally, with just a mouse, you can clean up your website on your own. So, within a few minutes, you’ll be hack-free and safe from potential hacks.
We suggest checking out our WordPress Security Guide once you’ve cleaned your pages.
With MalCare Now, Uninstall Malware Instantly!