[wp_ad_camp_1]Computer viruses are a problem for everyone online these days and you can never do enough to protect yourself. It’s common nowadays to have a good antivirus installed on your computer to protect yourself against downloading a virus through an email or any other attack, you need to make sure you check your antivirus regularly and run a full antivirus scan of your computer. Also installing anti malware on your computer is a good idea and make sure you keep it up to date as well.
But what happens when you have a virus on a dedicated or shared server? Well a virus on your website server can cause all manner of problems, the number one problem is you may not be able to load your website or it may become blocked by Google and other internet search engines with an error message. And if people can’t access your website then it may as well not be there. Some viruses on servers can also be downloaded on to your computer and also on to your visitor’s computers.
First thing I would do to remove a virus from a dedicated or shared server would be to inform your hosting company. They may not have noticed there is a problem on the server and until you inform them they won’t do anything to fix the problem.
If your website is on a shared server it is likely that all the websites on that same server have a virus too. This is when you pray that you made that backup file of the whole website last week!!
Go into your Cpanel or FTP program and have a good long look at all the files, if you built the website yourself you should have a good idea if there are any files that look out of place or search by date and see if any files have been created recently that you know you have not uploaded.
Delete all files that you are sure are not related to the website, be very careful at this point, you don’t want to delete something you may need.
There also maybe files, for example, an index.php file, the homepage of your website that the date of last alteration just doesn’t add up to you. Open these files and check the code, sometimes even code can be added to files that are used daily and this can cause the virus to start up with an error message.
Change all admin passwords, Cpanel passwords, and every other kind of password you can think of that maybe a back door for a virus to have gotten in by. Use a strong password, and I mean strong, you couldn’t remember it yourself unless you had it written down.
Once you have done all you can do to remove the virus from your dedicated or shared server go back and talk to your hosting company and see what they say about it. They may have a better secure server that you could pay a little extra for, or you might just want to change companies altogether.
Keeping your website and computer safe should be a number one priority.
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