Why does my home page have a virus?
If your home page has been altered this may be as a result of Malware that has been embedded in your code through a Trojan virus on your local computer.
This malware is not an active virus on our server but is a piece of code embedded in your content.
How did a virus get onto my website?
- If you do not have Anti Virus software or if the software is outdated. A virus on your local machine may have attached itself to a local copy of your website or harvested your FTP password from an FTP application that may have the details stored in it. The virus may contain spyware delivering FTP and other personal information to the hacker
- By an individual that has FTP access to your domain.
How to remove the malware
Malware displays as strange code or iframe tags which are written just below the body tag. Follow the steps to remove malware:
- Reset your FTP password
- Run a scan of your local computer with up-to-date Anti Virus software.
- Log in to your site with your FTP details and edit the file which has malware (this is usually your index or landing page).
- Look for the iframe tag or strange code just below the Body or Head tag.
- Remove the coding and overwrite the file.
- Change the permissions of the content to “444”. So that no hackers have privileges to write to the files.
You may need to request a Google site review to get the warning pages removed:
- Browse to Google Malware and hacked sites page.
- Once you have reviewed your site and are sure it is clean, you can submit a request for review. Note that you’ll need to verify site ownership before you can request a site review.
- On the Webmaster Tools Home page, select the site you want.
- In the Parts of this site may be distributing malware message, click ‘More details’.
- Click ‘Request a review’.
Google will review your site and if they determine that it doesn’t host or distribute badware, will remove the identification from the search results.
