What is Site Scan and what are its benefits?
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Site Scan from SiteLock is a cloud-based service that scans websites for vulnerabilities and malware, much like an antivirus program. The free basic version, Site Scan, is already included in all IONOS hosting contracts and checks your websites for threats every day using an external scan. The paid version, Site Scan & Repair, also removes malware automatically, closes security vulnerabilities, and scans your websites internally via SFTP. If a threat or a vulnerability is found, Site Scan notifies you automatically by email.
Site Scan is provided by our partner SiteLock. You can see the results in your IONOS account and in the SiteLock dashboard, which IONOS provides together with SiteLock. No separate login is required.
Site Scan
The free malware scanner for your websites
The basic version of Site Scan, which is already included in your contract, scans all websites connected to a domain in that contract for malware and alerts you by email when a threat is found.
Your benefit: At no extra cost and with no setup required, you find out whether your website is affected by malware or has a known security vulnerability.
Site Scan & Repair
Our optional professional protection with automatic malware removal for a single domain
Site Scan & Repair scans your website daily and fixes threats automatically. To do this, Site Scan & Repair scans your websites internally via SFTP. No action is required on your part.
Your benefit: You do not have to find and clean up infected files yourself. Your website stays online and is not penalized by search engines for malicious code.
Interested? You can find the current order conditions for Site Scan & Repair in your IONOS Shop.
Comparing Site Scan and Site Scan & Repair
| Feature | Site Scan (included free with your package) | Site Scan & Repair (paid, per domain) |
|---|---|---|
| Main benefit | Makes threats visible | Detects and removes threats automatically |
| Scan type | External only (checks the website from the outside) | External and internal (direct access to your websites via SFTP) |
| Scan scope per day | Up to 10 pages per domain | Up to 1,000 pages per domain |
| Malware | Detection and notification | Detection and automatic removal (SMART file scan) |
| Vulnerabilities | Platform scan: reports known, publicly documented security vulnerabilities (CVEs) in WordPress and Joomla | Additional XSS and SQL injection tests, plus automatic patching (SMART patch) for WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla |
| Blacklist / SSL | Automatic monitoring of email blacklists | Automatic monitoring of email blacklists and SSL monitor |
| SiteLock dashboard | Full access via your IONOS account, with no separate login. | Full access via your IONOS account, with no separate login. |
Features in detail
The following table gives an overview of the features of Site Scan and Site Scan & Repair:
| Level | Included features | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Site Scan (included free with your package) | External scans (up to 10 pages per day): – Website scan – Platform scan (as part of the vulnerability scan) – Automatic monitoring of email blacklists – Website health – SiteLock seal of approval – Dashboard access | Website scan: Searches your websites and analyzes the externally delivered code for malware. Platform scan: This process is part of the vulnerability scan. It checks website platforms such as WordPress or Joomla for outdated plugins, themes, or software versions and reports known vulnerabilities (CVEs). Automatic monitoring of email blacklists: Checks whether your domain is listed on spam blacklists. Website health: Combines all the test results for a domain into a single, easy-to-understand overall rating. SiteLock seal of approval: This seal of approval shows your visitors that your pages are secure and free of viruses and other malware. Dashboard access: The SiteLock dashboard gives you an overview of all the scans carried out on the website or domain, and displays the scan results in detail. |
| Site Scan & Repair (paid, per domain) |
All Site Scan features, plus: External scans (up to 1,000 pages): – Vulnerability scan – SSL monitor Internal scans (via SFTP): – SMART file scan – SMART patch | Vulnerability scan: Checks your website daily for two particularly common attack routes: SQL injection: Attackers use input fields or scripts to inject their own database commands in order to read or modify data. The scan looks for places where this would be possible. Cross-site scripting (XSS): Attackers exploit missing input and output validation to inject foreign script code into your pages. This can be used to redirect visitors or to load malicious programs in the background without them noticing. The scan detects any such security vulnerabilities and reports them to you. SSL monitor: Checks whether an SSL certificate is present on your website and reports its status. This means you notice early on if a page is delivered unencrypted or if a certificate is about to expire. SMART file scan: Scans your website's files for malicious content, reports what it finds, and removes any malware it detects. Both the file check and the removal of malicious content are carried out via SFTP. SMART patch: Checks WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla installations, including plugins and themes, for common vulnerabilities and closes them automatically. |
Note
Site Scan & Repair is ordered for one domain at a time. In the order dialog, the product is named Site Scan & Repair. You can optionally add the SSL Starter product there as well.
External and internal scans – the key difference
An external scan calls up your website in the same way a visitor would and checks the delivered code for malicious software and known security vulnerabilities. It cannot remove malware.
An internal scan is included in Site Scan & Repair only. SiteLock connects directly to the webspace directory that the domain path of the relevant domain points to, over an SFTP connection. This connection is the only way SiteLock can clean up infected files. Security vulnerabilities in your CMS are closed directly in the affected files.
Note
This SFTP connection is established automatically by the product integration between IONOS and SiteLock. You do not need to store any login details or configure anything.