How to Fix a Hacked WordPress Site: A Step-by-Step Guide on Identifying and Removing Malware

“Mysterious” pop-ups that you did not initiate, inexplicable auto-linking keywords, frequent freezing of your website... These are all but clear signs that your WordPress site has been hacked! Now what? Where should you look for the “infection”? Here's a step-by-step guide on how to fix a hacked WordPress site.

And it goes without saying that the very first step to take is to:

Keep calm!

Next, you'll need to figure out how precisely that malicious individual has found his/her way into your site. What security vulnerability has he detected and exploited?

Once you've determined how your WordPress website's got hacked, figuring out how to remove the malware is already a half-solved problem.

So, let's dig in before this hypothetical infection has spread out throughout your entire website:

 

Step 1: Identify the Hacked Files (and Change Your Password)

Remember what we've already agreed upon, that the very first step to take is precisely not to panic?

So, while keeping your cool, start your “investigations” by asking yourself 3 key questions  — this, of course, after you've already asked yourself “How to remove malware from my WordPress site?”:

 

• Are you able to access your admin panel?
• Is your site already marked as insecure (by Google)?
• Is your site redirecting automatically to another website once you log yourself in?
   

At this point, I also strongly recommend that you changed your password, as well. And this before you jump to the next step of your investigation.

Note: remember to change it again after you've cleaned up your website, as well.

 

1.1. Give Your Site a Thorough Scan Using a Security Tool/Plugin

And I do think that it never gets redundant for me to stress out:

Turning on a powerful WordPress security plugin on your website is one of the best shields that you could activate around it.

In case of an emergency situation, like this one here, you'd simply enable it to scan your site remotely and track down malware locations and malicious payloads and, most of all:

A good security plugin would identify and alert you, in real-time, of all the changes made to your website.

Note: everyone knows it, yet most website owners stubbornly ignore the importance of keeping their loads of WordPress themes and plugins updated regularly. They just overlook the fact that out-of-date files are by far hackers' “top favorite” security vulnerabilities. 

 

1.2. Check Whether Your Core Files Have Been Compromised

And since they're by far the most valuable files on your site, it's only normal to check their integrity first things first:

 

• wp-includes
• root folders
• wp-admin
   

Most of these core files should never ever be modified.

And there are 2 ways of checking them:

 

1. you either use the diff command in your terminal
2. or you check them manually, via SFTP
    

If they're unchanged and therefore clean, move on to the next step of this “how to fix a hacked WordPress site” guide:

 

1.3. Check the Integrity of the Recently Modified Files

It may also be that precisely the recently modified files on your WordPress site are the “corrupted” ones.

To know for sure, identify the files that have been recently modified.

And again, you have 2 options at hand for this type of “investigation”:

 

1. the manual check
2. running the right commands in your Linux terminal
    

For manually identifying these newly changed files that might have been hacked just go through these steps here:

 

• log into your server (use the SSH terminal or an FTP client)
• if it's SSH that you're using, then it's this command that will automatically list all the files that got modified the last 15 days: $ find ./ -type f -mtime -15
• if it's SFTP that you're using, just scan through the last modified date column for all files on your server
• … detect any files that recent changes have been made to
   

Now for tracking down these possibly “infected” recently modified files using the terminal, just follow these 2 simple steps:

 

• run this command in your terminal: $ find /etc -type f -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TT %p\n' | sort -r 
• next, if you want to identify the directory files, enter this command: $ find /etc -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TT %p\n' | sort -r 
   

Are there any unexplainable changes made to those files in the last 7-30 days?

 

1.4. Check the Diagnostic Pages 

A conveniently handy way to remove a virus from your WordPress website is to “track it down” using Google's or another website security authority's tool to give your site a deep scan with.

Has yours already been blacklisted by one of these authorities?

Then simply run the Google Transparency Report:

 

• go to Safe Browsing Site Status website
• enter your website's URL there
• check both the Site Safety Details and the Testing Details sections 
   

It's a quick and easy way to collect valuable information about any suspicious downloads, redirects, and spams on your site, as well as priceless data about Google's recent scan that ended in malware being detected.

Note: another way of identifying malware that's within your reach is by using a free webmaster tool — Google Webmasters Central, Norton SafeWeb, Bing Webmaster Tools etc.

 

Step 2: How to Fix a Hacked WordPress Site: Removing the Detected Malware

After all your preliminary investigations, you should put together your battle plan for actually removing the identified hack from your WordPress site. And for restoring it to its pre-hack clean state, too, obviously.

For this, here are the most effective measures at hand for you to apply:

 

2.1. Is a Clean Backup Available? Use It to Compare Pre-Hack to Post-Hack Files

Is there any need for me to stress out that:

You should back up your website on a daily basis!

And the very situation that you're in now is by far one of the strongest reasons to do that:

“How to fix a hacked WordPress site” will get reduced to: “simply comparing a clean backup to the current hacked version of your site!"

Identify the files that have been modified and get them removed.

It goes without saying that you risk losing some of your files —  those added/updated after the last backup — but you do want a clean website now, don't you?

2.2. Remove the Identified Infected Files from Your Website

Once you've restored your WordPress backup, you can easily remove any suspicious plugin, theme or other types of file.

Note: do handle core files with utmost caution, though! Mind you don't accidentally overwrite your wp-content folder or your wp-config.php file.

When it comes to infected custom files, you could replace them with a clean recent backup or with fresh new copies.

“But how do I remove “malicious” code manually?” you might ask yourself.

Let me go briefly through all the key steps required:

 

• log into your server (via SSH or SFTP)
• back up your website
• track down the recently modified files
• replace any suspicious files with copies from the WordPress repository
• use a text editor for opening up any custom files there and remove any suspicious code that you'll detect 
• test your newly cleaned up website
   

Word of caution: manually removing a malware infection from your WordPress site does call for special safety measures. Never remove corrupted code without first backing everything up!

 

2.3. Remove All Malware Infections from Your Database Tables, as Well 

Now, you do agree that a “how to fix a hacked WordPress site” tutorial couldn't possibly skip the step where database tables get cleaned up of any malware infection.

Here's how you do it:

 

• connect to your database using your database admin panel
• create a backup of your database
• give it a deep scan looking for any suspicious content 
• if detected, open the table containing that specific link or spammy keywords
• manually remove that infected piece of content
• give your website a “post database clean up” test
• remove any tools that you might have used specifically for this operation —  Adminer or maybe Search-Replace-DB
   

2.4. Check All The User Permissions: Look for New, Unfamiliar User Accounts

My advice to you, when it comes to user accounts, to user roles and permissions on your WordPress site is to:

Keep just one single admin user and stick to the essential user roles (and granted permissions):

• author
• editor
• contributor 
• etc.
   

This is one of the most effective prevention measures that you could take so you don't end up asking yourself “How to clean up a hacked WordPress site?”

Now, coming back to our investigation here, here's how you remove all the unfamiliar WordPress user accounts from your website:

 

• first, back up both your site and your database
• log into your admin panel and click the “Users” tab
• track down any unfamiliar new user accounts there, hover over them and delete them
   

Note: another wise thing to do is to re-check each user's roles and permissions. If you feel like updating them, simply use the users' role editor plugin.

 

2.5. Detect and “Close” all the Backdoors

And you want to treat this aspect with maximum seriousness. Otherwise, following each and every step indicated to you in this “how to fix a hacked WordPress site” tutorial becomes... pointless.

For the attackers would always have this “secret passage” to infiltrate themselves into your website over and over again.

“But what are backdoors more precisely?” you might ask yourself.

They're files similar to your site's core files — wp-config.php and key directories such as /uploads, /themes, /plugins —  yet strategically placed in the wrong directories. 

Here are some PHP functions that you could recognize them by:

 

• str_rot13
• assert
• base64
• move_uploaded_file
• eval
• system
• stripslashes
• gzuncompress
   

Word of caution: keep in mind that there are plugins on your WordPress website that could be legitimately be using these PHP functions; therefore, make sure you test all those "apparently suspicious changes" before rushing to remove the so-called "malicious" functions. Otherwise, by removing benign functions, you might just break your website.

 

2.6. Request a Review of Your Site, to Have all Malware Warnings Removed

Now, once you've repaired all the damage caused on your Wordpress site, it's only but logical to... let the blacklisting authorities know that your site's clean now.

For this, you can just request a review of your recovered website.

 

2.7. Change Your WordPress Salt Keys 

The very last step to take in this “How to fix a hacked WordPress site” process is to change the security keys from your wp-config.php file:

This way, even if a potential attacker stole your password, he would get automatically auto-logged out once you've changed your WordPress salt keys.

Next, you can just change your password, as well as the ones of other users on your site.

 

Or, Just Cut All These Steps Down to a Single One: Preventive Maintenance

Which means adopting a WordPress maintenance and support plan tailored just for you and your specific security feature needs.

This way, not only that you'd save the time (and spare your nerves) that you'd otherwise invest in carrying out all the steps included in a tedious “how to fix a hacked WordPress site” process, but:

From running regular updates to on-going maintenance of your website's core components to regular security audits, you wouldn't need to... move a single finger. Our WordPress maintenance and support team would handle it for you.

“Prevention is better than cure” is so much more than just a saying...