Title: Malware removal request
Last modified: March 4, 2018

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# Malware removal request

 *  Resolved [sloanish](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sloanish/)
 * (@sloanish)
 * [8 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/malware-removal-request/)
 * I recently was hacked and my developer ran a Malware removal request on my website.
   
   The infected files are still there but Emptied. In other words Zero bytes. Using
   Wordfence on other sites I manually removed these same file with a delete (not
   to trash) action. Is there an advantage to erasing the contents versus deleting?
 * Should I now go ahead and delete these files?
    The site is clean now via the 
   [https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/](https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/)
    -  This topic was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by [sloanish](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sloanish/).
      Reason: forgot tags

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  [yorman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/yorman/)
 * (@yorman)
 * [8 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/malware-removal-request/#post-10037444)
 * > Is there an advantage to erasing the contents versus deleting?
 * No, there is no advantage.
 * Depending on how the malware was injected in the first place, leaving the empty
   files in their current location may be a good idea. I have seen some malware 
   try to check if the website was already infected to reduce the work time. Some
   of them do this by checking if the files exist, if yes then the re-infection 
   is skipped.
 * However, I have also seen other type of malware that also checks the size of 
   the files, because they are now empty it will trigger the reinfection. Even leaving
   some random content inside those files may not work at all because other type
   of malware also checks the hash of the file, to verify if the malicious code 
   is correct.
 * > Should I now go ahead and delete these files?
 * This is a matter of personal choice. If you decide to leave them there, consider
   to also remove all permissions _(read, write, execution)_ so they cannot be checked,
   overwritten or executed respectively. Just remember to patch whatever security
   hole allowed the infection in the first place.
 *  [bemsertanejo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bemsertanejo/)
 * (@bemsertanejo)
 * [7 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/malware-removal-request/#post-10565172)
 * Same problem
    [https://bemsertanejo.net](https://bemsertanejo.net)
 *  [yorman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/yorman/)
 * (@yorman)
 * [7 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/malware-removal-request/#post-10565179)
 * [@bemsertanejo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bemsertanejo/) the ticket
   was marked as resolved after I answered the questions from the original poster
   in my previous comment. Please read that comment and let me know if you don’t
   understand something so I can explain it with more details.
 * Be aware that this forum doesn’t offers any assistance with regards to a malware
   infection, only if you notice an inconsistency with the information provided 
   by the plugin. To clean your website, I suggest you to contact your hosting provider
   to solve the problem on their end, or hire a security firm to do a clean up.
 * Anything else, feel free to ask.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘Malware removal request’ is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://ps.w.org/sucuri-scanner/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=2875755)
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 * 3 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [yorman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/yorman/)
 * Last activity: [7 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/malware-removal-request/#post-10565179)
 * Status: resolved