Hi Team,
I have run a full scan a few times on 2 WordPress sites that have malware infection, and have checked the result with Malcare plugin and it’s still saying that status is hacked/ infected etc. 1 malicious file on both sites. Simple SSL plugin is saying there are suspected bots causing 404 errors. Does GOTMLS help with this? Also, can I safely download a backup with Updraft plugin if this is the error showing up? Thank-you.
Do you have any evidence that your site has actually been hacked besides that alarming message from malcare?
The fact that bots are causing 404 errors in your log files is not surprising, this is pretty much a given on most any website. When bots ask for pages that do not exist on your server the 404 error message is the appropriate response, so this is not something I would be worried about.
I don’t see any reason why you would not be able to download a backup of your website. Even if it is potentially infected with a malicious PHP script downloading these files to your PC would not post a direct threat as they are designed to be executed through a web server and typically will not function on a PC without installing and configuring web server software on your local machine.
If you have any other evidence that your site might actually be infected with a real malicious threat of some kind then please send me a link so that I can check it out for you. Otherwise, I would not be concerned about an alarming yet vague warning from a plugin that will not tell you what it’s found unless you give them money, to me this is just as bad as ransomware when it is likely that they have not actually found any malicious hack on your site.
