{"id":61745,"date":"2021-08-12T11:03:05","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T16:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cpanel.com\/?p=61745"},"modified":"2021-08-12T11:03:05","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T16:03:05","slug":"how-to-manually-remove-malware-from-websites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devel.www.cpanel.net\/blog\/general-knowledge\/how-to-manually-remove-malware-from-websites\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Manually Remove Malware From Websites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Your website has been compromised, and you suspect the attackers have injected malware into its code. What can you do about it? There are many ways to approach a malware infection, and we\u2019ll look at some in a moment, but your final recourse may be to roll up your sleeves, hunt through the site\u2019s files, and remove the malware manually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article will show you how to find malware code in your site\u2019s files and remove it, using a WordPress site as an example. You don\u2019t have to be a developer to follow along, but you\u2019ll be better able to identify malware if you have some familiarity with coding and the language the site is written in; PHP in WordPress\u2019s case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How To Avoid Manually Removing Malware from Websites<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In an ideal world, you wouldn\u2019t have to remove malware manually. It can be a tedious process, especially if you can\u2019t distinguish between malware and innocent code your site relies on. It\u2019s also easy to miss malware code\u2014online criminals are sneaky, and they go to great lengths to hide it. Unfortunately, you might spend hours hunting down and deleting malware traces, only for a hidden backdoor to reinfect the site immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best option is to avoid malware infection in the first place. Make sure your site is updated, and turn on automatic updates if possible.  Be careful when installing plugins and themes, and avoid nulled or pirate software at all costs; it is invariably loaded with malicious code. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Automatic malware detection and removal is also less demanding than manual malware removal. cPanel & WHM supports the excellent free ImmunifyAV scanner<\/a>, which you can install via WHM\u2019s Security Center<\/em>. It alerts you when it finds a suspected malware infection and tells you where it is. If you upgrade to ImunifyAV+, you\u2019ll be able to remove malware with the click of a button too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, if you suspect an infection, you should attempt to restore a recent clean backup. Restoring from an uninfected backup overwrites malicious files with clean originals. cPanel\u2019s WP Toolkit<\/em><\/a> <\/em>makes it easy to back up WordPress sites in seconds, or you could use one of the many WordPress plugins that offer backup functionality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you don\u2019t have a recent backup, then you\u2019ll have to dig in and replace infected files manually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manually Removing Malware from a WordPress Site<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re using WordPress in our walkthrough because it\u2019s the most popular CMS, but a similar process works just as well on other content management systems and ecommerce stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should be mentioned that we\u2019re making a big assumption in this article. We\u2019re hoping the malicious code is limited to your website and that the attacker hasn\u2019t gained access to your web hosting server. However, if the server is compromised, the attacker may have replaced system binaries with rootkits and other malware. If that\u2019s happened, you can\u2019t trust any software on the server, including the software we\u2019re about to use to clean malicious code from the site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before tackling malware removal on WordPress, you should:<\/p>\n\n\n\n