WordPress is a popular CMS(content management system) that allows you to host and build websites easily. But It is important to save your WordPress website from any malicious code, which includes viruses, worms, and many more.
Do you want to know the different easy ways to scan your WordPress site for potentially malicious code? Fortunately, there are free and paid tools available to scan your WordPress website for potentially malicious code.
Unless you regularly scan your website, malicious code and malware can go unnoticed for a long period. By scanning your website you can be sure that your site is always protected.
However, regularly checking your website by scanning for potentially malicious code is always good.
In this post, we are going to illustrate to you the 10 easy ways to scan your WordPress website for potentially malicious code.
Read Also: 10 common WordPress security mistakes many websites Make
Easy Ways to Scan Your WordPress Site for Potentially Malicious Code
1. Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC)
Theme Authenticity Checker(TAC) is the best and most free WordPress plugin. This plugin scans all of your WordPress themes for unwanted or potentially malicious code. It is a master of WordPress plugins that protect, optimize, secure, and expand the functionality of your site easily with the help of plugins.
Often hackers target themes to inject the link, so this plugin is a good way to check for it.
It will scan every theme that is installed (See our guide on how to install WordPress theme) on your website for malicious code. Also, it can find things like footer links and Base64 code injection.
2. Sucuri
Sucuri is one of the best WordPress security scanners out there. They have a very basic free website scanner, which sees your site whether your site is running properly or not. We use Sucuri as a WordPress firewall to speed up our website at WPBeginner.
Sucuri offers a free wordpress Sucuri Security plugin that lets you scan your site for common threats and harden your WP security. But the real value is in their paid version.
In essence, after installing Sucuri, it automatically monitors 24×7 against all the threats on your website. It tracks all the activities that occur on your website. So that it can be found where things were wrong.
If something looks wrong, then Sucuri blocks the IP. They also send you a warning, if they are running with your site.
Upgrading to your $89.99 annual premium plan will give you automatic alerts about any malware problem through email and Twitter. However, this plan will also remove your malware for you and remove your website from any blacklist.
The last thing, they provide a malware cleanup service. And that service is included in the price of their service (regardless of how large or small your site is).
3. Exploit Scanner
Exploit Scanner is also a good and free WordPress plugin. This is much stronger than the Theme Authenticity Checker because it searches all your files and databases of your WordPress installation.
It checks for signs that can indicate that your installation has become a victim of malicious hackers.
It returns many false positives, so you have to know that the error is actually malicious or if it is okay, then what are you doing to see it?
4. AntiVirus
AntiVirus is another free WordPress plugin. It can scan your theme file daily for malicious code and spam. There is a virus alert option in the WordPress Admin Bar. It can also inform you of any malware detections by email.
It will only scan your current theme in WordPress. Your other installed themes will not be scanned. This is the main limitation of this plugin.
If you remove the inactive theme from your site then this is not a major issue (which is recommended as an old theme that has not been updated that can create a security risk).
It is a useful and free malware scanner that can scan your WordPress theme for malicious code.
5. Wordfence
It is another popular WordPress Security plugin. Wordfence lets you quickly scan your wordpress website for malicious code, backdoors, and known patterns of infections.
It will automatically scan your site for common online threats. You can navigate to wordfence >> scan and then you have to click on the “Start New Scan” button to run a security scan.
Wordfence includes advanced IP and Domain WHOIS to report malicious IPs or networks. Like Sucuri, Wordfence also comes with a built-in wordpress firewall, but it runs before wordpress loads and protects your website at the endpoint enabling deep integration with WordPress.
6. Anti-malware
Anti-malware is a custom wordpress plugin that fights malware or malicious code and protects your website. It removes all possible security threats runs a complete scan of your wordpress site and ensures that your website is safe and healthy.
It includes the ability to download definition updates that help defend your site against new threats and upgrade vulnerable script versions to prevent undetected exploits.
It gets you to check the integrity of your wordpress core files to ensure no malicious code has compromised key features.
7.MalCare
MalCare itself is the only wordpress security plugin with instant wordpress malware removal. It is a premium plugin and helps to keep data and WordPress assets safe.
This MalCare Security Plugin offers real-time protection with its firewall technology and using own servers for malware scanning.
It promises effective malware removal in a very short time and targets removing affected portions of files and leaving your site intact and fully functional. If you have a substantive amount of wordpress data to protect then it’s worth considering for protecting potential malicious code.
8. WP Cerber Security WordPress malicious code plugin
This free security plugin can help to keep your wordpress site safe and secure. It includes the limitation of login attempts, which monitor login forms, REST API, XML-PRC and auth cookie requests.
To defend from bad actors spamming your site, your registration, comments, and contact forms it leverages Google reCAPTCHA. It allows you to create custom login URLs and gives you the ability to permit or restrict access on a per-IP basis using single IPs, and subnets.
9. SecuPress Free
SecuPress free tool offers a complete security toolkit for wordpress as a for-pay plugin and also includes malware scanning that helps to block malicious bots.
It has features such as firewall tools, security alerts, anti-brute force login protection, and country blocking by geolocation. This free tool is easy to install and use making it a great choice for malware detection and removal.
10. IsItWP Security Scanner
IsItWP Security Scanner powered by Sucuri lets you quickly check your wordpress site for malicious code, malware, and many more security. You will get a detailed breakdown of any security issues that your site is experiencing after simply entering your URL. It offers step-by-step instructions to improve your WordPress Security.
Final Thought:
To help detect malicious files and changes, I encourage you to regularly scan your website. This is in your best interest to find out about any successful hack efforts to minimize the damage from the earliest attack.
Here, we discussed 4 ways to scan your WordPress site for potentially malicious code.
We hope this blog helped you to scan your WordPress site. If you have any problem related to this, tell us in the comment section!
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