i deleted some files with defender security

Hi @heistheddy

I hope you are doing well today.

In the first place please check do you have any kind of backup of the site which you could restore.

Later on, can you run a new scan and share with us screenshot if files that Defender is reporting and which you have deleted?

Kind Regards,
Kris

I have a database backup on ionos (the hosting platform) but for me to restore the backup I’d have to delete the website data, which I don’t want to do, anything you can do to help?

Hello @heistheddy ,

If you deleted files, then you need to only restore files, not the database.

It depends on which files were deleted if one of the WordPress core files, then you can reinstall only those files.
If for example, those were some plugins or themes files then you need to re-install those themes/plugins.

Uploading those files won’t change anything in database. Just make sure that you don’t remove or overwrite the uploads directory (that’s where your media files are).

If you have a backup of the files, then it will be the easiest to restore them.

kind regards,
Kasia

okay so, yes it seems they were WordPress core files. So how do i reinstall the those files?

• This reply was modified 9 months, 3 weeks ago by heistheddy.

Hi @heistheddy

Since site is down and you cannot login to it, you can download fresh WordPress installation package from here

https://www.ads-software.com/download/

Once you get it, extract the file to your local drive and

– connect to your server using FTP
– go to the folder/path where your site’s WordPress is installed
– and simply upload from the downloaded package to the server

a) wp-admin folder
b) wp-includes folder
c) and of these files if they are missing on the server

xmlrp.php
wp-trackback.php
wp-signup.php
wp-settings.php
wp-mail.php
wp-load.php
wp-links-opml.php
wp-cron.php
wp-comments-post.php
wp-blog-header.php
wp-activate.php
index.php

Kind regards,
Adam

Thank you so much, this helps me a lot. I’ll give feedback once it works

hi i am writing back to say, it didnt work at all and now im stuck. Does your plugin store deleted files
?

Hi @heistheddy

I’m sorry to hear that.

Plugin would store files for sometime if they’d be moved to quarantine but if they are deleted – that’s it. The only way to restore them is to either somehow re-add them (e.g. by reinstalling WordPress core or relevant plugins) or by restoring backup of the site (if you have such backup).

That’s actually also the reason why Defender does not remove files automatically and only reports them so admin of the site could check such report and decide whether it’s legitimate and if it’s safe to delete such files.

—-

Unfortunately, not knowing which exact files were deleted, it’s rather difficult to provide more detailed instruction/alternative solution, I’m afraid. If restoring files from fresh WordPress package didn’t work, we’d need some more information.

Do you have some access to server’s error logs (or possibly could get such log from hosting tech support)? If yes, knowing about errors reported in such logs could help us assessing what’s possibly missing or broken so we could give better advice…

Kind regards,
Adam

Hi @heistheddy

I didn’t hear back from you for quite some time already so I’m marking this topic as resolved.

If you still need assistance with the case, feel free to respond and we can continue anytime.

Kind regards,
Adam