upgraded Site Scanner service

SiteGround Launches New Site Scanner Plans

Since its launch in 2011, our Site Scanner website security service has helped hundreds of thousands of website owners protect their sites from destructive hacks, data theft and reputation damages via early detection of malicious software. We’ve been constantly improving the service for even higher website security by adding more functionalities, such as deep file scan done directly on the server in its previous update last year. Now we’re enhancing the existing Site Scanner service by adding a Site protect feature to it and we are also introducing a new premium plan that includes two more types of automatic scans and a quarantine option for malicious files.

What Is Site Scanner

Our Site Scanner feature is a security service that’s crafted to protect your website by:

  • Detecting malware and the latest threats that might affect your website;
  • Warning you about such potential threats at an early stage and in a timely manner;
  • NEW: Providing you with tools for reaction if your site is under attack. 

In order to do the above, Site Scanner runs a range of scans and checks on your website in search of any signs of malware daily. If it identifies a threat, you get notified by email which gives you enough time to react in case of any danger to your website security. With our latest Site Scanner version update we’re also adding tools that allow you to react and minimize the impact when your website is under attack.

The service now comes in two plans: Basic Site Scanner, which is an enhanced version of our current SG Site Scanner, and Premium Site Scanner, which includes a brand new set of features. Read on to learn more about each of these plans.

What’s Included in our Site Scanner Basic Plan

The Basic Site Scanner includes many functionalities that will detect and warn you about malware at an early stage, but now we’ve added a brand new feature that will allow you to minimize any damage in case of an attack, and further protect your website.

NEW FEATURE: Site protect

If you get a malware notification or you suspect that your website was compromised, you can now manage four different on/off options from the Site protect interface. They allow you to temporarily disable all file uploads to your website by three different methods: disabling FTP and/or SSH transfers, and disabling file upload via PHP. The fourth on/off option prevents the execution of malicious scripts on the server. While any of these options are enabled, you can safely review the site status and ensure that no additional threats can reach it. This gives you some time to assess the situation, take action to clean any malicious code on your site, and minimize the damage. Once you are sure that your site is safe, you can switch off the respective option from the Site protect interface and resume file uploads again.

URLs scan

The automatic URLs scan crawls your website URLs every day and checks if there is publicly detectable malware on your website.

Domain blacklist check

We automatically check whether your domain has been blacklisted for malware by some of the most popular and authoritative search engines, browsers and anti-virus databases. The blacklist check takes into consideration information from Google, Yandex, Chrome, Firefox, Norton, McAfee and many more.

On-demand manual scan (URLs, domain, and files)

With the Basic Site Scanner you can manually run an advanced scan of your site that will not only check your site URLs and your domain blacklist status, but will also make a comprehensive scan of all your files hosted on our server.

Email Reporting

You get immediately notified if our automatic scans detect anything suspicious with your site. Additionally, you will also get a weekly email summary of your website status.

30-day scan history

You can find a 30-day history of your site scans in your Site Scanner interface with the scan results and detailed information about threats and malware (if any).

NEW: Premium Plan With Awesome Additional Features

We now offer a Premium plan of our Site Scanner service that includes all the above-listed functionalities from the Basic plan, plus some premium-exclusive features for even more enhanced website security.

Daily automatic files scan

Whereas our Basic plan daily scan only checks your URLs and domain for publicly detectable threats, our Premium plan goes deeper. It includes our most thorough check, which goes automatically through every file of your website on the server and looks for malware, suspicious code that may remain publicly unnoticed.

File upload scan

With the file upload scan we will check every new file being uploaded to your site, through File Manager, FTP, WordPress backend or else. This is one of our best prevention tools that can detect malware as soon as it appears and notify you immediately with an instant email notification.

File upload quarantine

The Premium Site Scanner allows you to switch on an automatic quarantine. If you choose to do so, any newly uploaded file that is detected to be malicious will be automatically placed in quarantine (separate folder, outside of your document root), so that it does not become active on your website. You will then be able to manage each of these quarantined files separately, having the option to either restore them to their original location, or delete them. File upload quarantine is a powerful tool that may protect your site in times of an attack.

If you’d like to learn more about protecting your website and see the Site Scanner tool in action, watch the recording of our recent webinar that explains the different levels of protection websites get on our platform and the benefits of using our Site Scanner tool:

Activate or Upgrade Site Scanner for Your Site Now

If you still don’t use our Site Scanner service, we strongly recommend that you activate it to keep your site safe from malware. To purchase the Basic or Premium version of our Site Scanner security service for your site, go to your Client Area > Marketplace > Hosting Services > Additional Services

If you’re already using our Site Scanner service, you’ve been automatically switched to the Basic plan and all its latest features are now available for you to use. As a special offer for all our long-time Site Scanner users, we now offer a free upgrade to the Premium Plan until the end of your current service period. (Your Site Scanner should have been activated before June 15, 2022, in order to be eligible for the offer, regular Premium Site Scanner renewal prices apply after the end of your current term.)

To upgrade to the Premium version log in to your Client Area.

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Daniel Kanchev

Director Product Development

Daniel is responsible for bringing new products to life at SiteGround. This involves handling all types of tasks and communication across multiple teams. Enthusiastic about technology, user experience, security and performance, you can never be bored hanging around him. Also an occasional conference speaker and travel addict.

Comments ( 17 )

author avatar

Derek Short

Jun 20, 2022

Awesome!

Reply
author avatar

Scott

Jul 21, 2022

Why would you offer two plans? I'm not sure why we should even pay. Isn't security from your web host a mandatory requirement? I pay hundreds of dollars a year and have to live under fear of attack because my host is taking any precautions.

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author avatar

Elena Chavdarova Siteground Team

Jul 22, 2022

Hello Scott, We have always considered security as one of our top priorities as a web hosting provider. We go above and beyond when it comes to securing the server and each and every one of our customer’s accounts. There are multiple custom made security patches on all of our servers. Additionally, we have implemented virtual account isolation, which separates your site from the other on the server. Even more - our specialists are constantly monitoring the application scene and when there appears to be a global vulnerability of a sort, we are always among the first of the hosting providers who apply additional security layer to the servers. We perform automated updates on the applications hosted with us and monitor the ModSecurity is installed on all of our shared servers and we update our security rules weekly, thus protecting our customers from the most common attacks. And that is only on server side - we have also developed SiteGround Security plugin which can be installed on every WordPress installation and further improve the website security. You can learn more about the security measures we take here: https://www.siteground.com/kb/how_does_siteground_protect_my_website/. So with the SiteScanner is аn additional feature which provides an extra layer of security for a website. The features are listed in the above blog post with detailed information for each of them. I hope this information was helpful!

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author avatar

Colin Hunt

Jul 25, 2022

How do I activate the FREE upgrade to Site Scanner Premium? When I select Site Scanner Premium from the Marketplace it requires a payment of $71.88+GST. Client Area > Marketplace > Hosting Services > Additional Services > Site Scanner

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author avatar

Gergana Zhecheva Siteground Team

Jul 26, 2022

Hello Colin, please check if you see the option [Select] under both CDN versions for that same domain from the Marketplace. If so, this means that there was no Site Scanner Basic activated for the domain in question. If you are able to select only the Premium plan, and the discounted rate is still not being applied, please report that to our Live Support via the Help Center available at login.siteground.com. We'll be glad to check that for you.

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author avatar

Emily

Jul 26, 2022

What is the difference in price between the basic and premium plans?

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author avatar

Gergana Zhecheva Siteground Team

Aug 02, 2022

Hi, Emily! You can find the pricing of each plan in your Client Area > Marketplace > scroll down on the Hosting Services page to [SiteScanner] box. Once you select a plan, on the next page, you can see the pricing, the available billing cycle, and if there are any applicable discounts for the selected website.

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author avatar

Adrianna Danicka

Aug 11, 2022

Hello SiteGround the number I provide you. (We couldn't send the code to the provided phone number. Please try again or change the phone number).so I want to change the number but I can't even log in with my correct login details. to contact you I need to login but when I unable to login I'm trying to reach you here. Can you please help me with it . Thank you

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author avatar

Gergana Zhecheva Siteground Team

Aug 11, 2022

Hello Adrianna, we recommend you to try resetting the password from the Can't login? feature on our login page. You need to have access either to the contact email, or to the contact phone number. If you don't have access to neither one, please follow the instructions here.

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author avatar

Stefan Drew

Oct 19, 2022

What price is site scanner? I can see the 3 months free but there is no mention of the price thereafter visible to me. I’m reluctant to press the 3 month button in case it ties me into something I don’t want.

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author avatar

Gergana Zhecheva Siteground Team

Oct 19, 2022

Once you click on the Select button, on the next page you will see the selected plan prices listed above the "Activate" button.

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author avatar

Denis Taylor

Apr 05, 2023

We have a Grow big account - So why do we need to pay an exra 2.49 EURO a month for Security??????

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author avatar

Gabriela Andonova Siteground Team

Apr 07, 2023

Thanks for the question, Denis. We take a proactive approach to server security because we care about our clients’ data. So all our hosting plans include advanced security protocols that are constantly updated. See more about it here. The Site Scanner is our additional security service that monitors your site for malware, viruses, and suspicious links. With its recent enhancements (daily URL scans, domain blacklist scans, on-demand malware scans, etc.), it provides even more value to its users. This service is optional, but highly recommended and you can learn more about its many benefits here: https://siteground.com/kb/siteground-site-scanner/

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author avatar

Nola Young

May 24, 2023

Will the SiteGround Scanner work on all of our subdomains?

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author avatar

Gabriela Andonova Siteground Team

May 29, 2023

Thank you for asking, Nola. Site Scanner Premium offers some awesome new features, including automatic daily file scans (which is on top of the daily URL and domain scans). Premium plan users will have their subdomains and sites in subfolders scanned as well. You can read more about the service and its features here.

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author avatar

Tim

Oct 13, 2023

Does this scan for malicious files added to the base wordpress installation? And does it scan for mailicious php code within all files?

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author avatar

Gabriela Andonova Siteground Team

Oct 13, 2023

Absolutely! Our Site Scanner comprehensively scans all files within Site Tools, including both WordPress and non-WordPress files. It diligently checks and identifies malicious files added to the base WordPress installation and carefully examines all files for malicious code. Your website’s security is our priority!

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