How to Scan your WordPress Website for Malware
The fact that WordPress commands, by far, the largest part of the market, as far as websites are concerned, makes it a prime target for hackers and others with nefarious purposes. If you are worried about the security status of your website, here is how you go about scanning your WordPress site for malware;
- Log into your web hosting account. For those who are not in the know, this is different from the backend of your website. This website is hosted by InterServer and getting into our hosting backend is a simple matter of logging in using the provided details.
- In your web hosting backend, take the necessary steps to get into your site’s cPanel. These will be different for different hosts.
- In cPanel, scroll down to “Advanced.”
- Click on Virus Scanner
- In the Virus Scanner window, click on “Scan Entire Home Directory.”
- Click on the “Scan Now,” button.
Email notifications
That’s it. A full scan of your website will now take place. For my site, I find that each time that malware is detected, I get notification from InterServer via email. This allows me to scan and clean up my site. The great thing is that I am on InterServer’s Managed WordPress hosting plan, which comes with free virus cleaning. What you do not want, particularly if you are uninitiated, is to have a web hosting plan that does not cover your back as far as making backups and cleaning up malware is concerned.
The results
The scan that I made while writing this article actually turned up three instances of malware, two of which were restricted to the mail directory. I was then able to clean up my site using the available options. That’s it! That’s how you scan your WordPress website for malware. Hope this article helps you keep your websites malware free during the course of the current year.
What you do not want to do is to end up being flagged by Google because of malware on your site. This tends to hit sites severely as far as Search Engine rankings are concerned. So, strive to keep your site up to date in order to avoid this problem. You should also make sure that all your plugins remain updated to prevent malware from attacking your WordPress website.