5+ Best WordPress Malware Scanner and Removal Plugins

Are you looking for the best WordPress Malware Scanner plugin for WordPress? If yes read the whole post because not only will I list top plugins, but I will share must follow practice for malware protection.

As we know the internet is today full of malware, threats and website insecurities. Hackers and other cybercriminals are continuously coming up with new malware and threats.

They do for different reasons that include political and religious ideologies. Some people argue that these criminals are trying to “create a market” for anti-malware software. Some do it for data theft, privacy infringements, and impersonation.

Additionally, others think they do this as a form of sport or recreation, yet some belief that they are in effect exercising their developer-creativity in a negative way.

Whatever the reason, there is nothing as horrible as a malware attack on your site.

The Best WordPress Malware Scanner

Here are the hand-picked anti-malware plugins for WordPress. If your site is hacked or you need to secure it beforehand, install and activate one of this plugin on your site;

Plugins	Price	Active Installation
1. MalCare	$99/Year	Subscription Plan
2. Anti-Malware Security	Free	200,000+
3. Cerber Security	Free/ $29 – quarterly	100,000+
4. SecuPress	Free/ €60	–
5. Akismet	Free/ $5 – monthly	–

In most cases, malware attacks are random and therefore your site can be a victim just like that.

Additionally, these malware criminals do not want you to realize that your site has been attacked. This is because they would want to exploit your website for as long as they can.

However, there are many tell-tale signs that you need to notice.

So when do you know you need a malware removal Plugin for WordPress?

You need to constantly monitor your WordPress website in order to realize any events that can tell you about your website security. Among the most important of these events may include one or several of the following;

• An email from your web hosting service provider:

The attacker may be illegally consuming your server space (bandwidth) or even inserting malware and malicious files. Because of this, your hosting account may be suspended or quarantined.

Your host takes these extreme actions in order to protect other server users and the entire network. They then communicate to you for you to take further actions. This is a sure way of knowing your site has been attacked and you need an anti-malware plugin.

• A quick drop in your website traffic numbers:

Search engines and browsers will blacklist your site as a potential malware threat. Your traffic may be redirected to a criminal site mimicking yours. This is because some malware attacks and hacks are only visible to search engines.

• You might notice, your site has suspicious pages that you never published:

If your site has additional and malicious plugins, theme elements, line of codes and other suspicious issues. You may also notice that your site rendering is suspicious on the frontend.

Or you may also have additional users that seem to have been added so fast with suspicious email addresses.

For most WordPress newbies pray that the malware does not prevent you from accessing your WordPress Dashboard.

However, you can still access your WordPress files through your cPanel and delete the suspicious ones. Unfortunately, you need some level of WordPress and web security expertise.

You need to bear in minds that malware attack and infections are serious web security threats and should be handled by security experts. If handled incorrectly, malware attacks can lead to serious loss of data, privacy, and credibility.

It can also lead to serious legal issues. If you are confident with your technical expertise, you can go ahead to install, activate and run one of the following plugins in order to scan your site and remove malware.

Here are the best WordPress plugins to take care of malware attacks;

1. MalCare

MalCare is one of the most popular, comprehensive, intelligent and highly rated WordPress malware scanner plugin.

With this plugin, you can scan your site for malware for free. Additionally, the plugin cleans up your infected site automatically and in seconds. The tool detects even the hard-to-find threats breaking them off and protecting your site.

MalCare Anti Malware Plugin Pros

This WordPress malware scanner tool has quite a number of strong selling points that include the following;

• Early-stage malware detection: You will get to know about malware threat before any damage has been done on your website.
• Built-in backups: You can use previously backed up versions of your site for the last 365 days – These backups are automatic.
• Detecting hidden threats: This plugin helps in detecting hard-to-find malware. This is because the plugin was developed after analyzing 240,000 websites. Additionally, it utilizes more than a hundred signals to determine even the most complex of malware.
• Super light plugin: The plugin uses its own servers and therefore does not add any load on your web server.
• Automatic cleanup with a single click: The plugin automatically cleans up your infected site with just one click.

And add additional value that includes automatic website and plugins updates, brute force protection, website hardening, client reports, team collaboration among others.

MalCare Cons

• No free version of the plugin. The prices range from $99 per annum for one site to $599 per annum for 20 sites. Additionally, there is a custom price for Agency Plus plan users.
• Running on a different server. This means you do not have any control of and you do not own the plugin.

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2. Anti-Malware Security and Brute-Force Firewall

If you are looking for the best free WordPress malware scanner and removal plugin for WordPress, Anti-Malware Security and Brute-Force Firewall is your best bet. Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can register it at GOTMLS.NET to get additional features.

Registration will help you get a key. This key is important because it will give you the capability to get a new “known threat” definitions as they get discovered by the tool.

Anti-Malware Security and Brute-Force Firewall Pros

• Automatic website scanning to eliminate known threats out of your website. This will also get rid of the backdoor script and remove malicious database injections.
• Strong firewall protection that will prevent attacks from malicious plugins.
• Download and update the database of known threats. This will make it hard for any new threat or malware to attack your website.
• Free and premium versions. You can get the premium version by making a donation.
• Automatic updates for malware definitions when running a complete scan using the premium version.
• Protection from Brute-Force and DDoS attacks using the premium version.
• No limit to websites where you can install the plugin.

Cons

• Some of the best security and anti-malware features are only on the premium version.
• You need WordPress security and files expertise to install, run and clean up your site if infected before this.
• No additional features apart from malware removal. However, this is good because the developers’ sole efforts are on the core function of malware deletion and prevention.

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3. Cerber Security, Antispam & Malware Scan

Cerber Security, Antispam & Malware Scan is another well-known malware removal plugin available in the free and premium version. With this plugin, you can protect your WordPress website against malicious attacks, Trojans, spam, and malware. Additionally, you can prevent brute-force attacks on your website by limiting login attempts and using Google reCAPTCHA.

Cerber Security, Antispam & Malware Scan Pros

• Strict monitoring of logins especially by form and auth requests.
• Using White IP Access and Black IP Access lists to allow or refuse access by a single IP or group IP or entire subnet.
• Renaming wp-login.php This is the file responsible for login in on your WordPress website. You can rename it to what you wish in order to deny access to those login attempts that use known WordPress file taxonomies.
• Comments monitoring. Removes spam comments or deny them completely.
• Scanning and verifying, logging and detects changes to WordPress files, plugins and themes.
• The plugin has all the features that you would require to safeguard your site from malicious logins, signups, commenting, redirections, etc.

Cons

• The plugin is focused chiefly on malware that may attack your site through logins, signups, comments, and brute-force.
• In essence, the plugin hides or renames your dashboard, wp-login.php, wp-signup.php, and wp-register.php

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4. SecuPress

SecuPress Free — WordPress Security is one of the best and free WordPress anti malware plugin that we have in the market today. The plugin is available on the WordPress plugin repository in two versions; the free version and pro version.

The plugin is popular with users because it has a simple user interface and any user can comfortably use it without the need for too much technical knowledge.

SecuPress Pros

• Brute-force protection
• Strong firewall.
• Block malicious bots IPs, countries and regions.
• Fast malware scanning.
• Protecting security keys
• Detecting malicious and vulnerable plugins and themes.
• Generating security reports in PDF format.
• Automatic scanning and other security tasks with the pro version of SecuPress.

SecuPress Cons

• You need the pro version in order to access additional and exciting malware removal features.

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5. Akismet Anti-Spam

Akismet is one of the most popular plugin (and open-source software) in the WordPress repository. This is an extremely popular anti-spam and anti-malware WordPress plugin. The plugin has more than five million active installations.

Additionally, every new WordPress installation comes loaded with this popular plugin. In this way, most WordPress users find that they do not need to install it.

The reasons behind this are varied. Some of them include the fact that the plugin is developed by Automattic, the guys behind WordPress.org. Another reason may be that this plugin is too useful to ignore.

The plugin monitors and detects any spam and malicious injections on the WordPress comments and submission forms. This is done by checking them against their huge database of global spam.

Akismet Anti Spam Pros

• Automatic spam scans on comments and form submissions.
• The status history that lets the user see the comments that were spammed.
• Showing links in the message body in order for the user to know the malicious ones.
• Ability to see the number of approved comments by a user.
• A feature that lets you discard the comment and save on your disk space.

Akismet Cons

• You need a subscription in order to use this plugin for commercial needs.

Follow these Practices for Malware Protection and Removal

Now that we have shown you the best anti-malware removal tools that you can use, it is of paramount importance that you also know how to prevent malware attacks without plugins.

That is, without relying on the plugins to do everything. This is because WordPress website security is not plugin-dependent only. There are other important practices that you need to include to have a water-tight secure website.

Best practices for malware protection and removal dictate that you should not place all your bets and trusts on malware plugins. Some of the best tips for doing this include the following;

1. Always check and monitor important and crucial WordPress system files on your own without relying solely on plugins. These files include .htaccess, PHP, wp-config.php, and wp-blog-header.php.
2. On the theme side, you should also pay attention to header.php, footer.php, and functions.php. Make sure that all-important files are not interfered with and that any change is made by you or your developer.
3. Always update your WordPress site to the latest WordPress release. You can do this manually if your site does not update automatically. Constant update of your website means that your WordPress core files are latest and free of malware.
4. Make sure that all plugins installed on your site are constantly updated. Remove the ones you no longer need. Avoid duplication of plugins (having more than one plugins serving the same purpose).
5. Never install plugins (and themes) from unknown sources (the official WordPress repository is in most cases, the best source).

Other Important Security Considerations

• Remove any unwanted content, blog posts, pages and comments that may be spam. Always make sure that the content you post or upload is free of malicious links and that you can trust the source.
• Change your web hosting service provider to a trusted and secure one. Some vulnerability happens at the hosting level.
• Ensure that your PC is also malware-free.
• If you are not properly familiar with WordPress backend, JavaScript, PHP, and cPanel, and you do not have time to learn the ins-and-outs, hiring an experienced developer is always a good bet.
• If your site allows users to register, always monitor them for any suspicious activities on your site. Remove the ones you think do not have the best interests for your site. A good plugin for this would be User Blocker.
• Monitor all your submission forms. These include; contact forms, sign up forms, login forms and any others that you have made available on your site. Make sure that the forms are always used for what they are purposed for.

Why Is It Good To Monitor Your Site?

In addition to installing a good malware removal plugin for WordPress, these best practices for malware protection and removal are important for your WordPress security and experience.

Constant monitoring of your site means that you will get to know of any attacks before serious damage occurs. You will also be in a position to fix and repair your website in good time.

Note that failure to repair your site in good time; you may be forced to install a new instance of WordPress, meaning that you lose all your previous hard work and gains.

This is why you need to constantly make backups of your website.

Best WordPress Malware Scanner Plugin: Conclusion

There are quite a number of good security plugins for WordPress. You need to choose the best in order to protect your site from malware attacks, remove malware and secure your site from future attacks.

The above hand-picked plugins present you with the best alternatives to prevent your site from malicious attacks.

Some of the best anti-malware plugins for WordPress only have paid versions like MalCare. Others have affordable subscriptions like in the case of Akismet.

Additionally, there are other free malware scanner plugins like Anti-Malware Security and Brute-Force Firewall.

But in most cases, the free anti-malware and anti-spam plugins come in two versions, free and premium and or pro.

The plugin to choose depends on your circumstances and your own preferences.

However, it is good to note that some free WordPress malware scanner plugins offer premium-like features that you need to pay for if you are using other options. So it is therefore important to read our reviews before settling for the best.