What is Malware?
Malicious software, commonly referred to as malware, is a type of software or application created with the aim of damaging applications, computers, and networks.
Malware often modifies system files and/or creates new files, which can:
Make your website slow or unresponsive by using exceeded resources of the hosting plan
Redirect your website (or its specific pages) to other, usually illegal websites
Provoke different website errors
Stole confidential or sensitive information from your website (like passwords)
In general, malware is used for illegal purposes. If you want to learn more about malware, check this video:
To keep your website safe, our Web and Cloud hosting plans include a Malware Scanner.
How to Use the Malware Scanner
Malware Scanner is an automated tool integrated into hPanel that scans your websites for harmful or compromised files.
To find out how it works, go to Websites → Manage, search on the left sidebar for Malware Scanner, and click on it:
If no malware was found, this section will display your hosting plan’s name and the time that has passed since the last detection:
In case the Malware Scanner has detected any suspicious files, it will show the number of cases detected and cleaned in the period of time, as well as a summary with the following information:
Discovered malware – the total of harmful and compromised files encountered during the last scan
Actions taken – shows the number of files that were either removed or cleaned. Only files created by the malware are deleted. For cleaned files, only the corrupted parts are removed
Malware timeline – the record of all malware discoveries in the last 30 days
Show details – opens a section with the list of compromised and malicious files detected, the actions taken, and their location:
The best part of Malware Scanner is that it runs automatically, keeping you protected at all times 💪
Even when Malware Scanner is there for you, keeping basic security measures is still recommended. You can find a detailed list of best practices here: How to Protect Your Account and Websites.