Malware is a topic that should always be of high important when coming to website security. But what is Website Malware? Malware is short for malicious software. A piece of software or code that is made out to cause damage, steal information, break security, crime and more. You may have heard of the most common types of malware being viruses, worms, trojans, zombies and spyware.
Some people may think this is not something you get on websites but only software you may download ( with our without your knowledge ) but the very real fact is, Malware can be anywhere. Even large website like Yahoo have had problems of Malware on their website.
When a vulnerability has been found in your website and allowed a hacker in to take control, they may change things such as the content of your website, add pages, remove security features and more with bad intentions. These bad intentions are not limited to but can include phishing ( tricking visitors into handing over credit card and personal information ), inject malicious code that load content from other website to attack any visitors computer.
Website Malware has recently emerged higher in numbers in recent years which takes advantage or bugs in plugins, frameworks and popular website software such as Joomla, Magento, and WordPress. If your website does have the unfortunate event of getting malware injected into it, the damage can be devastating for your visitors and your business. You could very well lose the trust of your visitors for good. You website can be blacklisted by google and other popular search engines, in which removal from the blacklists can be very time consuming and a difficult task.
By 2014 google alone detects over 90,000 websites a week with Malware.
Visit the Google Safe Browsing Transparency Report
So what can one do to help stop Malware on their website? Take security seriously, and do simple things like keep all your software upto date, password protect important things like admin sections. Maybe do a secruity audit of any custom programming. And constantly check everything, as just because everything checks out okay now, doesn’t mean it will in a month or a weeks time.
But one of the best things you can do is employ a Malware scanner, which will constantly scan your website for Malware and let you know when anything is found. For more on Malware Scanners read our About Malware Scanning page.
If you think your website may be infected with Malware give your Free Website Security Checker a try.