Help, Google says my website is infected! The ominous “Reported Attack Page!” and “Something’s Not Right Here” are phrases every webmaster dreads to see. Unfortunately cleaning up a hacked site can be a nightmare for webmasters, but in this article we’ll tackle the steps you can take to remedy the problem and get your site back into Google’s favor. If you’re seeing one of the below images, continue reading to understand where to go from here.

In a hurry? If you have no time to spare, just contact Sucuri Security for instant help resolving your problems.

How to clean up a hacked site

1. Take your website offline and clean up

The first thing Google recommends is to take your site offline and clean it up. I strongly recommend reviewing Google’s list of suggestions as they are relatively comprehensive and will help you a ton!

2. Use tools to help you find the infections

These tools can help you identify the threats on your website and put you on the right track to cleaning them up. Remove any malicious code found.

2a. Consider a fresh installation

If all else fails, reinstall from scratch. I know it sounds harsh, but sometimes it’s the only way to be safe! A freshly installed CMS is guaranteed to be free of malicious content!

2b. Hire a professional

If you can’t seem to get things cleaned up and reinstalling isn’t an option, consider hiring a professional. The guys at Sucuri Security can get you cleaned up fast and even help monitor your website for future hacks!

3. Clean your PCs

It’s also important to scan any PCs you use to access your website as well in case you’ve been infected by the malware.

4. Update any website software (WordPress, Joomla, etc.) and Plugins

Update all of your software and plugins. Oftentimes a website becomes infected when a malicious user visits the website and misuses a feature or plugin on that website to inject code or other nasty things. To prevent this the best thing you can do as a webmaster is to limit the number of plugins you use on your website and make sure you keep everything up-to-date!

5. Run Windows (or Mac or Linux) updates and upgrade your PC software

This is for your own protection. If your website was infected, you might be too! Do yourself a favor and update your local PC to ensure you don’t continue to spread the malware.

6. Update all passwords

One of the most important steps is to update your passwords. This includes your login for your website, your web hosting company, your FTP passwords, your database passwords, your SSH passwords, and any other passwords or private keys you may use. During the infection any of these passwords could have been compromised. If you don’t change the passwords immediately the malicious user could return and infect your site again! Protect yourself by updating all passwords!

7. Check your other sites

Don’t forget that if your websites link to each other (or even if they don’t) you should check them all! Users who spread malware will often try to infect as many sites and as many pages as they can. You can never be too careful. Scan all of your websites!

8. Request a review of your website(s)

Once you’re certain that your website is completely clean and in tip-top working order, you’re ready to request a review of your website from Google. By requesting a review of your site you are telling Google that you want them to reevaluate your site and verify that it is now clean. This will remove the flag on your site that is keeping your visitors from reaching your site via Google search, Firefox, and the Chrome web browser.