12 Best WordPress Malware Removal Plugins in 2021

Getting attacked by Hackers is no fun trust me when you have spent months building a WordPress website or published countless articles on a WordPress site blog and out of nowhere, you see a red error start appearing on your website or shows a random message that your website is Hacked by XYZ hacker.

It’s like getting hit hard

Because now you are not sure whether your hacked WordPress site will be fixed again, will you ever get your data back? Or Will any of the WordPress malware removal plugins help you to get your site back.

There are multiple signs when your website gets hacked

• Google Search console send you a message saying your website is hacked or has a malware
• Your Hosting provider suspend your hosting account
• When you visit your website it shows a red error in the browser
• Customers might complain about their credit card getting hacked after using it on your website due to malicious code injection the attacker capture the form submission data.
• Your website becomes slow to load
• Your website gets a sharp decrease in the traffic
• There are hundreds or thousands of login attempts if there is no brute force protection in place
• Your website get redirected to other websites
• You will see random popups on your website
• Your website theme will be all up and down

These are the kind of signs you see when your WordPress website gets hacked in this case you need an instant WordPress malware removal plugin to help you with WordPress malware removal.

There is no guarantee when a website will get hacked.

If your website is not secure or is on an unreliable shared hosting server, there is a higher chance that your website can get hacked. To ensure that your data always remains safe, you need to install malware and trojan removal plugins.

In this article, we will discuss why malware removal plugins are crucial for your website’s health and how not installing them on your website can cost you your business.

Before we get started, here is what you need to know about the best WordPress Malware removal plugins.

Why Use Malware Plugins On Your Website?

 

• You want to keep your website secure from hackers and viruses
• You want users to trust your website and can visit it without fear
• You handle secure data and want that eavesdroppers can’t get access to your user data
• You want that no one uses your hosting servers for their malicious intents such as DDoS attacks or mining cryptocurrency
• You want that no one injects code on your website to log data and traffic

A malware and trojan removal plugin can save you from all types of malicious intents.

These plugins are not free though.

You can get a scanning plugin for free but if you want to remove the viruses from your website or server, you will have to pay or subscribe to the malware plugins.

Do Malware Plugins Help WordPress Users?

 

Malware plugins can remove malware from WordPress websites.

They do it by scanning WordPress websites and then removing the files that are not relevant to the core WordPress installation yet are part of the system files.

Malware plugins are trained to capture trojan and malware files. They are updated with the latest virus footprints regularly.

When they are scanning the website for malware, the virus footprint is analyzed and is quarantined if detected on the victim’s website.

In short, WordPress malware removal plugins are great for anyone who would like to keep their data and website secure at all times.

Top Best WordPress Malware Removal Plugins That You Can Install

Here is a list of the best WordPress malware removal plugins that you can add to your website for scanning malware right now.

MalCare Security Plugin

 

 

MalCare security plugin – One of the easiest to use and light-weight plugins that helps you to scan your WordPress websites for files and databases for malware, infections, trojans, backdoors, malicious redirects, code injections, and 50,000+ security threats & vulnerabilities.

Pros

 

• A powerful plugin with easy-to-use features.
• Integrity check of the WordPress core files, plugins.
• Scan WordPress websites’ files & databases for viruses using regularly updated WordPress malware signatures.
• Supports WordPress CLI for scanning.
• You can integrate MalCure WordPress Malware Scanner with Google Search Console and get security warnings or notices to warn you in time.
• Ultra-high-precision results + Auto-sync with WordPress Checksum API.
• You can Access regular backups that you can use for up to 365 days.

Cons

 

• MalCare plugin only works on live websites. You can’t test the plugin on local hosted computers.

Sucuri WordPress Malware Removal plugin

 

Sucuri is the most popular security tool and is used by more than 400K site owners.

Sucuri Malware removal not only works for WordPress but also on other popular platforms like Joomla, Magento, Drupal, etc.

The unique selling point of this plugin is effective scanning and protecting your site from malware and malicious code.

Pros

 

Sucuri removes malware infections from WordPress files and databases. Besides, It also removes malicious codes, link injections, and SEO spam keywords.

The plugin helps to submit the blacklist removal requests on your behalf in case you were blacklisted by search engines.

• Comes with dashboard notifications when anything malicious is detected.
• DNS monitoring.
• All WordPress files scan against original copies from WordPress.org with a file integrity check. It helps site owners to easily detect and delete malware and malicious code.

Cons

 

• Sucuri offers a remote scanner to scan for malware. It means the malware scanner is not visible on the browser
• Support is slow to respond to issues that can be harmful to a hacked website.

Wordfence Anti-malware Security

 

Wordfence security gives you real-time updates on your site traffic and even hack attempts made on the WordPress site.

This plugin consults search engines like Google to remove malware from your WordPress website.

Pros

 

• It completely removes the malicious codes i.e links from posts, pages even comments left on the website.
• Provides an in-depth report while investigating and removing malicious code from the hacked websites.
• View and repair corrupted files.
• WordPress endpoint firewall.
• Wordfence central dashboard.

Cons

 

• Word Fences scanning makes the server operation slow that resulting in the website.

SiteLock

 

 

SiteLock plugin is renowned for automated cleaning and hacks prevention measures.

It has been helping developers for quite some time. Besides WordPress, it offers security solutions to websites that are built on Joomla.

Pros

 

• Offers DDoS firewall.
• SiteLock will clean malware from your website automatically depending on the security package you subscribe to for your WordPress website.
• The plugin will automatically patch security vulnerabilities found on your WordPress core files.

Cons

 

• The plugin fails in early malware detection and sometimes fails to remove malware completely.

 

iThemes Security Pro

 

The unique thing about this plugin is that it uses Sucuri’s Site check scanner to look for malware.

It identifies if a file has been changed, added, or removed and updates you respectively about the issues so you can fix them.

Further, iThemes Security will help you harden your WordPress website security and protect it from further attacks.

Pros

 

• Schedule regular backups. (in case, you run into any issue then you have an option to quickly restore your site to its original condition)
• Provides WordPress Login Page Protection.
• Security Grade Report
• Single Dashboard Multiple Site Management

Cons

 

• The advanced features of this plugin utilize a lot of your website resources. If your site is hosted on shared hosting, then it makes the site inaccessible.
• iThemes doesn’t own a scanner to detect malicious code.

BulletProof Security

 

BulletProof Security is an intrusion detection and prevention system that keeps on track of all your WordPress website files.

If any of the files have been changed they are either auto-restored or quarantined that can be later viewed on the Dashboard and restored or deleted.

Pros

 

• Unwanted login monitoring
• File integrity monitoring & file upload prevention
• Offers htaccess security
• BulletProof Security comes with a Database Diff Tool which compares the current database with the old database.

Cons

 

• The plugin leaves a large number of data tables and folders after it’s uninstalled.

SecuPress

 

If you are proactive then the WordPress security plugin is a great choice. The only security plugin that offers a complete scan to fix the issues for you.

It can scan your website and then provide you with a list of files to quarantine.

You have the final say to proceed with the quarantine or use some other direction.

Pros

 

• SecuPress offers secure WordPress endpoints by blocking bad requests for XML-RPC and REST APIs.
• It blocks bad bots with the help of its Robots Blackhole feature.
• GeoIP Blocking
• WordPress login protection

Cons

 

• Each malware removal request costs additional charges.

Quttera Web Malware Scanner Plugin

 

Like other security plugins, Quttera is not only restricted to scanning WordPress websites but also useful for powerful platforms like Magento and Joomla.

Pros

 

• Offers one-click scan
• Detect the files that are infected by PHP malware
• Somehow your website is blacklisted, the plugin helps in requesting Google Search engine or other search engines for blacklist removal.

Cons

 

• The process to remove malware is daunting and time-consuming. After you detect malware infection on your website, you need to log into your Quttera dashboard and fill in a form. Once you do that, a malware analyst is assigned to your website who investigates and proceeds to clean the website.

Defender Pro

 

This plugin fits the best WordPress security plans to your website with just a few clicks.

Stop brute force attacks, SQL injections, cross-site scripting XSS, and other WordPress vulnerabilities. 

Pros

 

• WordPress website is scanned automatically and a report is generated.
• Disable trackbacks and pingbacks that help in spam prevention.
• Block users based on location and country.

Cons

 

• A little pricier in comparison with other WordPress malware removal plugins available in the market.

VaultPress

 

VaultPress scans WordPress files and automatically detects viruses and malware. It fixes detected problems with just a click.

And also protects your website by blocking spammers.

VaultPress is now powered by Jetpack and effortlessly backs up every post, comment, media file on your site to their own servers.

Pros

 

• Fastest growing malware removal WordPress plugin with complete scanning and detection features
• Uses the latest algorithm to search for virus detection and malware removal
• Provides WordPress website backup, malware removal, security, and a lot more
• Offers file scanning, site migrations, and spam defense

Cons

 

• Part of the Jetpack WordPress plugin menu. So you will have to buy the whole bundle to get the VaultPress malware removal plugin for your website

Security Ninja

 

A quality WordPress malware and security plugin available in the market for the last three years, Security Ninja offers 60+ security tests, complete site vulnerability testing, preventive measures and hacks, and a lot more.

It doesn’t let malicious scripts enter your websites with other plugins because the plugin is always actively scanning your website after frequent intervals.

Pros

 

• Easy to install
• Offers regular site scanning
• Prevent malicious code from entering the website
• Comes with 50+ security and virus scanning tests

Cons

 

• Offers basic security for free but exploits and malware removal requires plugin subscription

 

Titan Anti Spam Security

 

Titan is a great anti-spam and security plugin available in the market. It checks websites for accessibility, security, threat detection, and usability testing.

Titan offers multiple firewalls and a complete customization package for improving core website vitals and site health.

Titan is one of the oldest security plugins available in the market. It is fast, easy to use, and offers comprehensive security solutions.

Pros

 

• Tidal anti-spam security plugin offers most of the anti-site websites in Europe or anyone else.
• Scans website for threat detection all the time

Cons

 

• Uses premium packages to unlock security plugins it offers

Tips to protect your WordPress website before getting hacked

 

There are multiple ways to protect your WordPress site upfront before it gets hacked.

Many website owners complain about WordPress security but they don’t implement these simple security practices.

Securing a WordPress site is not rocket science by implementing these security practices you can put yourself way ahead of other webmasters in terms of web security.

Here are simple methods to secure your WordPress website

 

Use a secure web hosting provider

 

There are countless web hosting providers but the good WordPress hosting providers are only a few here are the following factor to look for before you choose a hosting provider

• Security of your Data
• Uptime of the hosting
• Monthly traffic of your website
• Available storage
• Loading speed

Protect the wp-config.php file

 

This file holds the most crucial information about your website protecting this file means protecting the core of your WordPress blog.

Webmasters fail to protect the wp-config file and once the attacker gets access to it they use it to get access to the entire website

Disallow WordPress file editing

 

If you disallow WordPress file editing no one will be able to edit the files therefore there will be less chance of someone injecting malicious script into your website and your site will be secure from many known security threats.

Add the following code to the end of the Wp-config.php file

define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);

Rename the default login URL Wp-admin of your WordPress site

 

Let’s suppose an attacker got the logins of your WordPress blog somehow by renaming the default WordPress login page to something else it prevents the attacker to get into the login page.

Not only that it also protects the site from brute force attacks

Change the default admin username

 

One of the mistakes that a lot of webmasters make is that they use the default username (admin) which is not a good idea for brute force protection.

Therefore an attacker can use brute force attacks to get access to your website. If you are using a default admin username change this immediately to something else.

Conclusion: Which Malware Removal Plugins to Buy?

 

It totally depends on whether you wanna use a premium WordPress malware removal plugin or not but it’s always good to have a backup of your website and use WordPress malware removal plugins because they identify malware and automatically delete the backdoor scripts from your website. Usually, your web hosting provider has malware detection in place but it’s not as good as it should be.