WordPress security services, from emergency cleanup to staying clean
If your site is infected right now, we can start today. If it is fine and you want it to stay that way, that is the same work further up the timeline. We clean hacked WordPress sites, find the hole that let them in, close it, and harden what is left, for clients across the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Is your site actually hacked?
Not every odd thing is an infection. Here is what we look for, and how to check it yourself first.
Signs it probably is
- Google shows a warning before your site loads
- Admin users appear that nobody created
- Visitors get redirected somewhere you have never heard of
- Pages appear in another language or selling pharmaceuticals
- Files changed at three in the morning in your file manager
- Your host has suspended the account
How to check it yourself, free
- Run a scan with Wordfence or Patchstack
- Search Google for site:yourdomain.com and look for pages you do not recognise
- Open Search Console and read the Security Issues tab
- Compare wp-content against a backup from before the trouble
- Read the Users list in wp-admin from top to bottom
If all five come back clean you probably do not need us, and we would rather tell you that than sell you a cleanup.
What a WordPress malware removal actually involves
Three stages. The first one gets you back online, the second stops it happening again, and the third is the part most people skip.
Stop the bleeding
A full copy of the site exactly as it is, so there is evidence and something to roll back to. Then the active payload comes out and the site loads again.
- Full file and database snapshot
- Active payload removed
- Site back online
Find the way in
Almost always a plugin with a known vulnerability, a nulled theme, or a password reused on a site that got breached somewhere else.
- Entry point identified in writing
- Every user audited, every password rotated
- Core, plugins and themes reinstalled from source
Close it properly
Hardening, monitoring, and getting you off any blacklist you ended up on. A cleanup without this stage is just a pause.
- Hardening applied
- Safe Browsing and host review lifted
- Monitoring and alerts switched on
Why WordPress sites get hacked
It is rarely anything exotic. Four causes cover almost everything we are called in for.
Plugins, mostly
11,334 new vulnerabilities were found across the WordPress ecosystem during 2025, up 42% on the year before, and 91% of them were in plugins. Source: Patchstack.
Nulled plugins and themes
Pirated copies of premium plugins almost always ship with a backdoor. It is the single most common root cause we find, and the licence would have cost less than the cleanup.
Updates nobody ran
46% of last year’s vulnerabilities were public before a patch existed. The ones that do get patched only help if somebody actually applies the patch.
One reused password
An admin login reused on a service that got breached elsewhere. No plugin protects you from that. Two factor authentication does.
What hardening actually means
Most of what people call WordPress security services is this: a short list of boring changes that between them remove most of the ways in. It is not a plugin you install and forget.
- A web application firewall in front of the site
- Two factor on every administrator account
- File editing disabled inside wp-config
- File and folder permissions set correctly
- Least privilege, so administrator rights exist only where they are genuinely needed
- Login rate limiting to blunt brute force attempts, and XML-RPC closed unless something needs it
- Off-site backups that somebody has actually restored once
What comes with every cleanup
No cleanup is finished until you know what happened and it cannot happen the same way twice.
A written report
What was found, where it was, how they got in, and what we changed. In plain English, not a scanner dump.
Every credential rotated
Admin users, database, FTP and hosting. Anything the attacker could have read is no longer valid.
Thirty days of monitoring
We watch for reinfection after we hand back, because the first fortnight is when it shows up.
Rated 4.9 out of 5 across more than 2,800 client reviews
We work with clients directly and on monthly retainers. We also work through Fiverr and Upwork, where we hold Top Rated and Top Rated Plus status. Here is what a few recent website and SEO clients said.
- Verified on Upwork
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- Verified on Fiverr
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- Direct client
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Security questions, answered straight
Keeping a site patched month to month is a care plan rather than a cleanup. Our wider WordPress services cover both.
Think you are infected right now?
We fix hacked WordPress sites the same day where we can. Message us with the domain and we will look and tell you what we see, before any money changes hands.
How can I tell if my WordPress site is hacked?
The usual tells are a browser warning before the site loads, admin users nobody created, redirects to somewhere unfamiliar, spam pages in another language, or a suspension notice from your host. Run a Wordfence or Patchstack scan and check the Security Issues tab in Search Console. If those are clean, you are probably fine.
Is there a free malware scanner for WordPress?
Yes, several. Wordfence has a free scanner, Patchstack has a free tier, and Sucuri will check your public pages without a plugin. They are good at finding known signatures and less good at finding a backdoor hidden in a file that looks legitimate, which is where a manual review comes in.
How do you scan a WordPress site for malware?
We compare core, plugin and theme files against clean copies from the source, so anything modified stands out immediately. Then the uploads folder and the database get checked by hand for injected scripts, and access and error logs are read to find when it started and what came in first.
How do you prevent malware attacks on WordPress websites?
Keep the plugin count low and the plugins updated, never install nulled software, put two factor on every admin account, run a firewall, and keep off-site backups you have tested. That is most of it. The rest is noticing quickly, which is what monitoring is for.
How long does a cleanup take and what does it cost?
A straightforward infection is usually back online the same day, with the entry point closed and hardening done inside the week. Cost depends on how many sites are involved, how long it has been there, and whether backups exist. We quote a fixed price after looking, not before.
Will I lose content or rankings?
Not normally. We work from a full snapshot and clean files rather than deleting pages, so content stays. Rankings recover once Google recrawls and the warning is lifted, which is usually days rather than weeks if you catch it early. If the infection sat there for months, expect a slower recovery.
Can you get my site off the Google warning list?
Yes. Once the site is genuinely clean we submit a review through Search Console and, where the host has flagged it, deal with them too. The review is the easy part. It only works if the cleanup was thorough, which is why we do not rush it.
Tell us what you need and we will show you how we would do it
Share a few details about your business and what you want to fix or build. It could be a new website, a WordPress site that keeps breaking, SEO that has stalled, or a sales process that needs automating. We will come back with honest advice, even if that means a smaller job than you expected.
A reply within one business day
A real person on the team reads your message and replies, usually the same day.
A free review of your current setup
We look at your website, rankings or systems before we talk, so the call is useful.
A written proposal
You get a clear scope, timeline and price in writing before any work starts.
Prefer to talk first?
