- So what is malware
and how do you protect your website from attacks?
Well, we're talking about it here on The Journey.
Have you ever been in a situation where you wondered how
to get rid of malware on your website?
And if you haven't, you're one of the lucky ones.
According to statistics,
75% of small business websites are at risk for cyber attacks
which means online security is more important than ever.
And as such,
monitoring your website
and ensuring proper security measures
are in place is crucial.
- So in today's video,
we're gonna talk about how malware finds its way
to your website,
we'll also cover how to identify
if your website has in fact been infected,
and then lastly,
we'll talk about how to get rid of malware
on your small business website.
Covering it all.
So let's kick things off Nealey.
What is malware and how does it infect your website?
- Well, malware is a pretty broad term
and it refers to malicious software created
and used by cyber criminals
for the purposes of extorting money, stealing identities,
hijacking websites, damaging softwares,
and just other illegal activities.
Malware comes in many shapes and forms such as viruses,
worms, adware, spyware, trojan, keyloggers and more.
All those just sound terrifying.
But malware is usually distributed in a couple
of different ways,
either through phishing emails
that contain suspicious links or attachments,
visiting malicious websites,
manipulation of source code and themes
or templates disguised in plugins,
it's pretty popular on WordPress,
not reputable plugins, but out of date ones,
drive-by downloads, brute-force attacks,
and unfortunately so much more.
- So let's talk about cyber criminals.
Now, cyber criminals can target your hosting company
to distribute malicious files
or they can target random websites
as well as your own personal computer.
So once you have a virus on your computer,
it can easily infect your website.
And unfortunately you can unknowingly infect your website
by uploading files containing malware to your site.
Another way to compromise your site
is by logging in while your computer has been infected
with a keylogger, thus granting access to hackers.
- So this all sounds pretty scary
but how do you actually identify malware?
Before you really figure out how to remove malware,
you need to be able to identify it.
And this is not easy
as it's often hidden in different files on your site.
But there are some warning signs that you can be
on the lookout for that can help you recognize when
your site has been infected.
A couple of things you can look out for is,
your website doesn't display any of its usual pages,
instead it displays graphics signed by the hacker.
This is known as website defacing.
It can also be Google displays warnings that your site
it contains a malware.
They like to notify their visitors
to ensure that they stay safe.
- Some other things to look out for,
your website has been blacklisted by browsers.
Also your hosting company disabled your site, yikes.
In addition to that, your website is loading slowly,
also a potential sign and your customers
or clients might be complaining
about the drastic increase in strange emails,
oof, coming from your own domain's email address.
- And when you visit your site,
you and your visitors are redirected
to a third party website
with suspicious or usually inappropriate content.
You can also see strange ads on the front of your site
that just don't make sense to be there in the first place,
or you notice new and unusual files or folders.
- Now, once you notice one or more of these signs,
there's a handful of ways
that you can actually confirm your suspicions
starting with a Google Safe Browsing Site Status Report
and what it is basically Google offers a free
safe browsing site that you can use
to scan your entire website for malware.
And once the tool has finished the scan,
it will notify you of, you know,
any suspicious files and code containing malware.
- And if you are code savvy,
you can manually inspect your site's files
for malicious code.
Malware is usually hidden in the htaccess, PHP
or WordPress Core files.
It could also be in just random HTML
or just scripts in general.
But files containing malicious code will usually have lines
of code encoded in base 64 format.
Basically it's encrypted code that when you look at it
it's just a long string of characters,
but unencrypted it's doing a lot of bad stuff
for your visitors.
- And the third option that you have for detecting malware
on your site is actually GoDaddy Website Security.
And this is a tool that offers basically a malware scan
on all plans for unlimited number of pages on your site.
And you'll also get the benefit of blocklisting issues
which those can be damaging to your SEO rank.
You don't want that.
And one big benefit of using this tool
is that you don't have to go through hundreds
of files manually.
- All right, now if you've found your website
has been infected,
you're probably wondering how to actually get rid
of the malware.
There are two ways to remove malware from your site.
You can do it manually,
but keep in mind that unless you're very familiar with code,
you really run the risk
of not removing all the infected files.
And another downside of manual removal is that
it is super time consuming.
When someone hacks your website,
it's usually not just one file manipulated.
I helped a woman with her business one time
and I think it counted to 764 individual files
containing malware.
And that would have been a nightmare
for me to clean up manually.
But a better and easier way to get rid of the malware
is just to use a dedicated tool such
as our GoDaddy Express Malware Removal
or any of our plans that kind of offer that.
It really does save you a ton of time
and it's worth the money if you're not that expert.
- So what to do after malware removal?
Well, once it has been removed from your site,
there are a few steps left to complete
that will keep your site safe.
So update your CMS, your plugins,
and themes to ensure that they're using the latest versions
as well as removing any potential vulnerabilities.
- You'll also wanna implement a backup plan for your website
so you can easily restore your website at any point in time,
sometimes easier than just fixing the hack.
But next install an SSL certificate,
just to protect you and your visitors'
sensitive information such as logins or credit cards.
But again, with any of this,
continue to scan your site regularly for the malware
either do it manually or through some automated tools.
It's super important to be up-to-date
and top of mind so that when something does happen,
you are right there to attack,
but above all you'll really wanna change
your admin passwords
and really any other users that has access to your site
or your Control Panel.
- Now a hacked and compromised site will ultimately lead
to a blocklisted website
and that's gonna ultimately damage your reputation.
It's gonna cost you customers and sales.
And in addition to that,
it ruins the brand image
that you've worked so hard to build.
- Keeping your site safe and secure is a must.
Luckily having a tool that helps get rid of malware
and just prevents you from being on browser's block list
and prevents future attacks is not only easy
but also gives you that peace of mind.
But if this video is helpful for you,
make sure you give it a like and drop a comment below.
- And don't forget to subscribe and ring that bell
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This is The Journey.