What is this strange banner from “Hackguardian”?

  • Resolved cemcgill

    (@cemcgill)


    10 months ago

    Hi – just today I noticed that when editing my site while logged in (i.e. it doesn’t appear to regular viewers of the website) there’s this strange banner message across the top of my site:

    (Sorry for the horrible narrow screenshot.) It says “HackGuardian: Enabling HackGuardian protects your website. However, disable the tool when accessing SFTP, installing plugins and updating WordPress. Enabling/disabling may result in 10 seconds of downtime (in rare cases up to 60 seconds).”

    This seems extremely weird and I’m worried it’s some kind of virus, but if so, I don’t know how I contracted it or what to do about it now. (This is just my own personal website and I’m very much a WordPress beginner.)

    Also, I find it very strange that searching “HackGuardian” (NOT Hackerguardian, which is some existing plugin) on Google and WP forums yields absolutely no results. Is this some sort of brand-new virus/scam that no one’s ever seen or talked about before??

    Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks.

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
  • Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    What plugins do you have installed? (See tools->site health for a copy/pasteable list) Also, ask your host about this.

    Thread Starter cemcgill

    (@cemcgill)

    Hi there, thanks very much all for the quick response – here are all my plugins, all of which are also currently active; my host is Easy WP, so I’ll contact them too. I’m curious to know @tonymoula if your host is also EasyWP, or if you have any of these same plugins installed.

    • Akismet Anti-Spam: Spam Protection – Version 5.2 by Automattic – Anti Spam Team (Latest version: 5.3.2) | Auto-updates disabled
    • BackWPup – Version 4.0.0 by Inpsyde GmbH (Latest version: 4.0.4) | Auto-updates disabled
    • Bluehost Site Migrator – Version 1.0.12 by Bluehost (Latest version: 1.0.14) | Auto-updates disabled
    • Child Theme Configurator – Version 2.6.2 by Lilaea Media (Latest version: 2.6.6) | Auto-updates disabled
    • Contact Form 7 – Version 5.7.7 by Takayuki Miyoshi | Auto-updates disabled
    • Duplicator – Version 1.5.5.1 by Duplicator (Latest version: 1.5.9) | Auto-updates disabled
    • Grid Kit – Version 2.2.0 by wpsofts | Auto-updates disabled
    • Lightweight Social Icons – Version 1.1 by Thomas Usborne | Auto-updates disabled
    • MetaSlider – Version 3.33.0 by MetaSlider (Latest version: 3.70.2) | Auto-updates disabled
    • Official StatCounter Plugin – Version 2.0.9 by Aodhan Cullen | Auto-updates disabled
    • PHP Compatibility Checker – Version 1.6.2 by WP Engine (Latest version: 1.6.3) | Auto-updates disabled
    • Pretty Google Calendar – Version 2.0.0 by LBell | Auto-updates disabled
    • Toggles – Version 1.1.0 by George Mamadashvili | Auto-updates disabled
    • Widget Context – Version 1.3.2 by Kaspars Dambis | Auto-updates disabled
    • Widgets On Pages – Version 1.8.1 by Todd Halfpenny | Auto-updates disabled
    • WPCode Lite – Version 2.0.13.1 by WPCode (Latest version: 2.1.12) | Auto-updates disabled
    Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    You might try installing WordFence and using it to scan your site.

    Coths

    (@coths)

    I’m also experiencing it. What theme do you have active?

    Thread Starter cemcgill

    (@cemcgill)

    Steven – thanks very much for the recommendation, I’ll try that.

    Coths – I’m using “Lovecraft” Version: 2.1.1 By Anders Norén.

    Coths

    (@coths)

    Tracked it down. You’re probably hosted with EasyWP.

    HackGuardian is a new tool, which was added today for all EasyWP websites:
    https://www.easywp.com/blog/wordpress-site-protector-hackguardian/

    Video about it:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDxKYm_bqz8

    Thread Starter cemcgill

    (@cemcgill)

    Oh my goodness, thank you so much for finding that! I was searching for ages this morning trying to see if this was some update/tool associated with a legitimate plugin I’d already installed, but nothing at all came up – I just checked, and still no results for “HackGuardian” on Google besides this thread and several spammy sites which have clearly misspelled the completely unrelated plugin, “HackerGuardian.”

    Bah – good to know I’m not hacked, but I wish EasyWP wouldn’t add some spammy-looking banner to everyone’s site without even sending out an info email.

    Thanks so much again!

    @cemcgill Je suis rassuré egalement ?? thanks all for the answers

    Oleh

    (@bonysmoke)

    Hello @cemcgill and everyone!

    I would like to apologize for this inconvenience on behalf of the EasyWP Team.

    Indeed, after the release of HackGuardian, the banner wasn’t displayed correctly for some websites due to various conflicts in CSS. The issue was fixed promptly from our side; therefore, you should no longer observe this imperfection in your WordPress Admin Panel.

    In case you face any new issues, please contact us in the most convenient way: https://www.namecheap.com/help-center/live-chat/

    Best regards,
    EasyWP Team,
    Namecheap, Inc.

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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