Don’t Panic: What to Do if Your Site Has Malware

Posted February 11, 2010 By Kyle Greenan |

In late 2008, Google and the Mozilla Foundation (the makers of Firefox) began a program to halt the spread of malicious code (also known as malware) on the Internet. Since then, Google has been creating a blacklist of sites that contain malware to help protect users.

Have you ever been to a Web site, but instead of the website you were greeted with a warning message that said “Warning: Visiting this site may harm your computer”?

Generic Google Malware Warning Message

If you have, then you have experienced Google’s program first-hand. Maybe it was not your site, but what if it was? What are the steps you need to take to get your site back online?

  1. Go to Google’s Webmaster Tools, log in and get the information about what was detected. This will give you a clue on how to approach the removal of the malware. If you don’t have a Google account, you can also visit: www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=example.com (but instead of  ’example.com’, type in your domain name). This will also give you some information on your site, such as the status of your site, if there has been malware detected, etc.
  2. Next, change all of the passwords related to the Web site (anything related to the site, e.g. FTP). One of the most common ways for malware to invade your site is by taking advantage of a weak FTP password.
  3. Once the passwords have been changed you need to make sure all of your site’s software is up to date and has the latest security fixes (contact your hosting provider for more help).
  4. If you have scripts on your site that you no longer use, remove them.
  5. Now you should go through your site files looking for any odd code such as “<script> function ZsTvTrDzZ()..” and remove it.
  6. Once you have removed all of malware from your site, you can resubmit your site to Google through Webmaster Tools. Google will scan your site again to see if it still detects malware, but this will take some time. If Google does not detect any malware then it will remove the warning page and your site will be back to normal.

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About the Author

Kyle Greenan is TradeMark Media's designer. He uses his background in graphic design to lay out and design Web-focused graphics with the client's ideals in mind. He also handles most of TradeMark's site maintenance requests.

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