If you are frustrated with continued malware and viruses on your site, please read the following:

Keep your Word Press site up-to-date on a weekly basis.  If you cannot do this, hire a virtual assistant or be prepared for malware.

Keep your plugins up-to-date on a weekly basis.

Word Press is not a platform that can sit for weeks and months without attention.  If you want a site that you don’t work on, please hire someone to help you, or use a different type of website.

Never use a login like admin / admin.

Create a login for your site from any variety of sites, Google “create difficult password” if you would like to use something other than http://makemeapassword.com.

Change your password regularly.  Never have your computer keep the password stored.  You may have to look it up each time, you will save yourself hours of grief by not allowing easy access to your website.

Learn what a FTP is.  It is what developers use to access the core files of your website.  You don’t need to be a programmer, but rather understand that you need to know how to call your web hosting company and find where the information is located.

Your FTP is typically your domain name, a user and a password.  Learn this information.  Save the information so in case you site get’s infected, you can take the next step.

Run Sucuri.net ALWAYS on your site.  This is not what GoDaddy gives you with your web hosting.  It monitors and removes malware from your site.  I refuse to work on sites that do not have this protection.

The login for Sucuri is case sensitive.  Once you have signed up, login and click the red button that says “Malware”.

You will need your website name and FTP information.
*Infected Website:  www.mywebsite.com
*FTP/SFTP Hostname:  (usually)  www.mywebsite.com
*Username:
*Password:
*Description of the problem:  This can be anything from a popup that shows you have a black hole exploit, your website is not showing up, or is messed up.

Once you create a “malware” ticket, you will receive confirmation that Sucuri is working on the issue.

You will receive a message from Sucuri if there is a problem and they cannot access your FTP.  If they cannot access, call your web hosting provider and ask for help to figure out what your FTP login is.  They will not be able to give you the password, but web hosting company will direct you on how to set a password.

It is extemely important that you choose a difficult password for your FTP as well as your  Word Press site.  Hackers run bots (robots) that can easily figure out what a password is if you don’t use a string of letters, numbers and symbols.

Now that your site has been scrubbed clean, go back and change your passwords again.  It will take you 10 times longer to keep going back and fixing this problem if you do not follow these instructions.

If you have questions about your site being infected go to this site immediately and run a scan:  http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/scanner

Within a few moments you will know whether you are infected or not.

If you are not infected, but your site looks messed up or not coming up at all, login to your Sucuri account and request that they take a look at any files that need to be replaced.  Sucuri is great about helping you.

Next, so your site keeps getting infected, you have changed passwords and nothing is stopping the problem.

This could very well be that you have malware/viruses on your computer and reinfecting your site and others along with you.

Run this software to remove malware.   You can use the free version.

If your computer has become infected, literally crashing your system, you need to call the manufacturer of your computer and either use the technical support that came with the computer or pay a very nominal price for them to go into your system and scrub out viruses.

Do not work with a computer, EVER, that is either old or does not have technical support available.  You could lose everything and infect visitors that come to your site.  I have spent the last year working through these issues with almost 100 sites.  Learning how to keep your online business protected is key in maintaining the health of your site and staying responsible to visitors who find you.

Kind regards,

Cherie Young
Word Press Themes
www.CherieYoung.com
www.BeautifulCustomMaps.com
760.994.0813