The Malware Scanner is one of the most relevant tools integrated into the Sucuri WordPress plugin. This free tool, powered by Sucuri SiteCheck, scans your website for:
- Malware
- Blacklist Status
- Website Errors
- Out-of-Date Software
Malware Detection
SiteCheck is a remote scanner which means that it can not access the source code files of your site. It finds malicious code on the pages of your site.
Because this is a remote scanner and not a server-side scanner, results are not 100% accurate. Your site could be hosting malware on the server that doesn’t show up on the frontend of the site.
Malware Scanner vs. Another Plugin
There are some free malware scanners offered in the WordPress repository that can report if a file is infected with malware.
Every malware scanner and antivirus implements the identification of malicious code. This feature has different names depending on the category of the software, so for the sake of clarification we will call it “Malware Detector.” This MalDet uses a dictionary of texts that are technically called “signatures” which are used to identify a malicious code by repetition or by duplication of the format.
Consider the infamous PHP function eval which is used to evaluate a string of characters as PHP code, or system which is used to execute external programs available in the server like Unix commands. These, among other functions, are considered harmful and are usually disabled at the server level to prevent its usage in a PHP project running on that server.
If a hacker finds that a website allows the execution of arbitrary commands by using one of these functions, then they will try to attack it and gain access to that server. So what a MalDet does, in its basic principle, is to deny the execution of any PHP file (or any other programming language or software) that contains these functions. It does that adding eval or system to the dictionary of signatures that are suspicious.
Our Website Security Stacks offer the following features:
- Professional Firewall
- Improved Performance
- Backups
- Malware Scanning (remote and server side)
- Malware Removal
- 24/7 Support
If you would like to have the full list of features available from Sucuri, please check out our services here.