If your website gets hacked, there is a chance that a hacker might enter some malicious code into your website that redirects it to another spamming webpage, which can damage your website. Google will blacklist your website for redirecting a user to the malicious website.
Many websites get hacked daily, so you need to secure your website from malware redirect attacks. These redirects are of different types. They can take the visitor to any spamming or adult website to degrade your website’s reputation, and sometimes hackers enable these redirects only for mobile browsers.
How to detect WordPress malware redirect
You can detect a malicious redirect by visiting your website when visitors are redirected to a malicious website instead of the website they opened. To check where this malicious redirect occurs, check the following areas of your website.
- A hacker can inject malicious code into your WordPress core files.
- Make themselves a ghost admin on your site.
- Place the infected code in php, footer.php, or functions.php in your WordPress theme folder.
- Check php and index.html.
- Also, check .htaccess files
After effects of malware redirect WordPress
There are several after-effects of malware redirect.
- Your website gets blacklisted.
- The site will take a very long time to load.
- Shut down your website.
- Show warnings about your site.
- Destroy reputation.
- Destroy the trust of the visitors on your website.
How to clean WordPress malware redirect
You may have a question about how to remove malware from my WordPress site. You can follow the following steps to clean up your website.
Scan the website for malicious code
You can scan your website by going through its code files, but if you don’t have time for this, you can scan WordPress websites for malware online. Before scanning, back up your website because these malicious codes can destroy it if you don’t remove them on time.
You can even use plugins like Wordfence, Sucuri, or Jetpack to scan your website for malware redirects. These plugins can help you find the infected code.
Locate the bad code
It is not easy to locate the bad code on every page of your website. Sometimes these malicious codes are hidden in the server. There are locations where hackers mostly attack to find these codes; you need to log in through FTP. If your website redirects you to a different website, you need to look at:
- WordPress core files.
- Both index.php and index.html files.
- .htaccess files.
And if a hacker redirects your user to some download page, you need to check your:
- Theme files.
- PHP file in the theme folder.
- PHP file in the theme folder.
Pretend you are a bot
To scan your website better for malware redirect, you can pretend to be a bot using a command-line interface. You can use the following code to make a bot using the SSH client.
$ curl –location -D – -A “Googlebot” somesite.com
After entering this command, you need to look for the suspicious code. The infection could be in an iframe or a script. The command line will help you locate the infection on your website.
Remove malicious code
Once you find the infected part, remove the malicious code from it. If the hacker creates an infected page on your website, you can remove it by using the remove URLs feature in the Google Search Engine Console.
Resubmit your website
You need to resubmit your WordPress website if it got blacklisted from Google search result for review. Otherwise, Google will not know that you have fixed your website.
You must log in to your webmaster tool (Google Search Console), go to Search Traffic, and click Manual Actions. There, you will see a request to review option, where you can submit your request.
How to secure your website after the removal of the website redirect virus
After removing the infected parts from your website, you need to secure your website from future attacks.
Update your WordPress website and plugins
You need to update your WordPress core files, plugins, and themes. Updates fix previous bugs and improve website security. Also, update all the extensions you have installed on your website. The update is really important for your website because technology changes daily.
Remove unwanted themes and plugins
Remove all unwanted themes and plugins from your website. These themes and plugins will slow down your website and increase its vulnerability. Deleting every plugin and theme you are not using is a good idea. Don’t give any loose ends to the hacker to infect your website.
Secure your password
Change all the passwords on your WordPress website. Strong passwords are hard to crack. You can use lowercase and uppercase characters, special characters, and numbers to make your password powerful. To ensure your website’s security, change the related passwords. All passwords mean the administrator, FTP account, hosting, and database passwords. Also, regenerate WordPress salt keys.
Use plugins for security
You can even use plugins for security. There are many WordPress malware scan plugins for advanced security features. Every plugin has one primary goal: to secure your website from malware attacks. Many plugins include:
- Wordfence
- Sucuri
- Jetpack
- All-in-one security and firewall
- And many more.
Conclusion
Malware is a harsh thing for programming that is meant to harm your website or computer. We have discussed WordPress website hacked redirects and how to handle this problem. I hope you like this article and that it helps you fix your problem.
Don’t Let Malware Damage Your Site or Reputation
If your WordPress site has been hacked or infected, time is critical. Our expert malware removal service will clean your site fast, secure it against future attacks, and get you back online safely.
