Yesterday I was answering some comments on my website and when I clicked on a link a warning from google poped up. I instantly went to Sucuri to scan my site for viruses or malware. To my shock, I found out that I had malware on my site. After about an hour of googling how to deal with this malware, I finally got rid of the malware and I am looking forward to seeing the google warning removed.
Here are 5 things I found out:
1. Take a deep breath. My initial reaction is to react to the situation. I need to take a moment and think about what I can do to fix this situation and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
2. Remove the malware. The site Sucuri does a great diagnosing what is wrong with your site.
3. Find the hole. I found out how youth ministry media was hacked. I was through an inactive wordpress plugin. So, I got rid of it! I also did some optimizing of the site that really need to be done. Now every month I will spend sometime optimizing, repairing, and updating everything.
4. Back up regularly. I don’t do this enough. Here is a great plugin to backup your database. I am going to back up every 3 days!
5. Delete all inactive wordpress plugins. I had tons of inactive plugins. When I figured out how my site was hacked. I deleted all my inactive plugins. I was becoming a wordpress hoarder! They are now all gone.
Go and scan your site for free here.
