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HelioFix
A typical job. Mobile visitors were redirected to spam, and Google showed a warning. The site was cleaned, locked down and back to normal.

Hacked site cleanup

A pharmacy site sending visitors to a gambling page, cleaned and secured.

Common in
Pharmacies
Service
Malware removal and security
Typical time
Usually 1-3 days
malware and spam pages removed
Clean
malware and spam pages removed
the hole the attacker used
Closed
the hole the attacker used
firewall, updates and backups in place
Protected
firewall, updates and backups in place

The problem

This is one of the most common jobs I get. The owner opens the site and it looks fine. But patients on their phones, or visitors coming from Google, get sent to a gambling or pharmacy-spam page. Sometimes Google shows a “This site may be hacked” warning in search results.

What I do

  • Take a full backup before touching anything
  • Find and remove the malicious code, fake pages and rogue admin users
  • Update WordPress, the theme and every plugin, and remove the ones nobody uses
  • Change passwords and add a firewall and login protection
  • Ask Google to review the site so warnings are removed

The owner usually can’t see the problem on their own computer. That is why it can run for months.

The result

The site is clean, up to date and much harder to break into again.

Technician plugging network cables into a switch during a website migration and DNS change
Web hosting server room with long rows of lit server racks

Next job type

SSL warning fix

A typical job. The SSL certificate had expired and some pages loaded insecure content. Visitors saw browser warnings and left.

Laptop on a dark desk being checked for an SSL certificate error before the Not Secure warning is fixed