Guide to Remove Malware from Your WP Engine Website

Remove Malware from Your WP Engine Website
Remove Malware from Your WP Engine Website

A web host is a necessary component of any WordPress.org website. So, what do you do if your site is suspended by WP Engine, your own hosting provider?

A web host is the physical location of your website. When a hacker hits your website, he or she makes alterations to the scripts that run it. Your infected website may provide a hazard to other websites on the same network, depending on the type of hosting you have. For example, if you have shared hosting, your infected website may provide a threat to other websites on the same network. Although this risk is considerably decreased with dedicated hosting, your visitors are still at risk of becoming infected.

Hacks are not the fault of WordPress, contrary to popular belief. One of the continuous dangers of operating a website is being hacked. There is no such thing as a totally safe platform or piece of software. Because security is based on a multitude of interlinked elements, it can never be guaranteed. There are warning indicators that your website is infected with malware:

  • Security plugins issue a warning.
  • The WP Admin dashboard has been blocked.
  • Unprecedented traffic increases on the site.
  • Visitors have expressed dissatisfaction at being sent to a different website.
  • The site promotes random links.
  • Google has placed a website on their blacklist. (Here’s how to get rid of Google Blacklist Warning.)
  • The browser notifies you that there is suspicious activity on the site.
  • Malware is detected using a security scan.
  • WP Engine takes the site down.

If your site has been suspended by WP Engine, the first step should always be to contact them. Hosting companies will offer as much assistance as they can.

We’ll walk you through every step of restoring your hacked and suspended WordPress site in this article.

Stay Calm

The emotional toll of seeing everything you’ve worked so hard to build crumble in front of your eyes is painful, but all is not lost! While it’s natural to feel overwhelmed, hasty judgments can have disastrous consequences. So keep cool and carefully follow each step to have your site back online in no time.

Change WordPress Password

You change passwords whenever you fear your social media accounts, such as Twitter or Facebook, are being used by someone else, right? That’s exactly what you should do if you still have access to your WordPress dashboard. You can also utilise the recovery feature to change your email address.

Reset Administrator Password via phpMyAdmin

If you are unable to access your WP Admin dashboard, the hacker has most likely disabled it. The good news is that you can still save your database by utilising the phpMyAdmin admin interface to change your password inside the website database.

Update Website

An outdated plugin or theme script is responsible for 40% of all website hacks. Hackers are more likely to infiltrate and modify older WordPress plugins, themes, and the core code. Updating your website will greatly reduce the scope of your issues.

Scan for Malware

Install a thorough virus scan on your website and execute it. Because hackers can infect a website with malware that looks exactly like your own website files, make sure the scanner is of high quality. Scanning your site for malware should reveal all of it. Malware cleanup plugins for WordPress are also available.

Replace Compromised Files

A simple repair is to remove and replace files with their original versions, which are those that existed before the breach. It’s worth noting that pinpointing the exact timeline of the hack and selecting the appropriate versions to rollback to can be tricky.

Without affecting your site, you can replace WordPress core files with a fresh instal. Everything should be back to normal as long as the wp-content folder remains intact.

In any case, clearing up the contaminated files will require a significant amount of time and work.

Restore from Backup

Only if you routinely backup your website is it feasible to restore it from backups. In reality, if you have a website backup, recovering from a hack can be as simple as selecting and restoring the appropriate backup version.

Re-scan for Malware

This step is simply to ensure that no malware remains on your website. If malware is discovered again, repeat the previous two procedures. There could be a backdoor in your website that keeps reinfecting it over and over. This rogue script should also be identified and removed.

Use a Web Application Firewall

A firewall can assist you block IP addresses and botnets that may do you harm. Security firewalls form a barrier, blocking some types of network traffic and defending against IPs that deliver malicious or suspicious requests.

Harden your site Safety is paramount

Securing your website means reducing the odds of another hack occurring in the future. While no exact guarantee can be given, you may do your best to lessen the possibilities of a worst-case situation occurring.

Check User permissions

User roles in WordPress are used to limit what users can and cannot do once they log in to the dashboard. Only provide administrator privileges to persons you know and trust. As a result, it’s a good idea to glance through the Users menu after a hack to see if there’s anything unusual in the list, such as an administrator user you don’t recognise.

Change SALTs (Secret Keys)

Secret Keys use hash to encrypt information in cookies. Someone who just logged into your site still has access to it. You may prevent hackers from accessing the backend by replacing the secret keys in your wp-config.php file. Everyone who is logged on will be logged out of the site as soon as the salt is changed.

Change all other Passwords

It’s not enough to change your WordPress passwords. If you suspect malicious activity using any of the following login sites, you should change the passwords as well.

  • Admin credentials for WP Engine Hosting
  • Admin email address FTP login MySQL database password

Two-factor authentication, HTTP authentication, and Captcha-based Login Protection are all options here.

Contact WP Engine Web Host

Now you must compose an excellent email outlining all you did to secure your website. Explain to WP Engine that you’ve taken care of all potential security issues by email, and voilà! Your website should be up and running again soon.

Now you must endeavour to rebuild your website in the proper manner. You’ve secured, updated, and safeguarded your website, but you still need to double-check that everything is working as it should.

Do I have any other option?

Imagine having the majority of the above tasks completed for you with just a few clicks! That would be The Dream, wouldn’t it? For that reason, many people have described MalCare as their go-to security solution. MalCare goes above and above to give you with cutting-edge security features and top-notch customer service. That way, no matter what security measure you choose to adopt, you won’t be left defenceless.

MalCare is a WordPress security plugin that provides daily Intelligent 100+ signal deep scanning and one-click cleaning, as well as a slew of other security-related features including security hardening, strong login, and firewall protection. MalCare keeps track of active, inactive, and updated themes and plugins automatically.