A strain of malicious code can infect your personal website but remain hidden every time you access your own site.
This GalleyCat editor recently discovered malware hidden inside the code of his personal website. When accessing his personal site at home, the malicious code was invisible. But when a friend with anti-virus protection visited the personal site, the program spotted the problem.
The moral of this story is simple: you should run a security scan on your website. We used the free Sucuri Site Check to discover what kind of malware had infected our personal site.
The program solved our problem, but there are many programs that will scan your website. We don’t have the technical expertise to make an endorsement for the best security scan online.
Here’s more about Sucuri Site Check, the simple program we used: “Enter a URL and the Sucuri SiteCheck scanner will check the site for malware, blacklisting status, and out-of-date software.” The company also has a free WordPress plugin.
Your personal website is an extension of your writing online. You don’t want to corrupt your reputation with nasty code. If you ever spot malicious code on a friend’s site, be sure to them as well.