Google has a system in check looking out for harmful content such as Phishing websites and website containing malicious files/programs which aim to either steal personal/sensitive information or trick you into installing/downloading something locally.

It may be a complete shock when you receive this at first because you will be greeted with a completely red page, notifying you that the website you are about to visit is deceptive and may contain malware. It is even a bigger shock when this website is your own and a few days or even hours back there were no issues like that.

Do not be alarmed as we will explain what you should do when you are faced with a similar situation to resolve it and prevent it from happening in the future.

What should I do when my site has been marked as harmful?

The first thing you should immediately do is run a malware scan on your website. You can do that in a couple of ways:

1. The easiest way you can scan the site is by using either a plugin or module available for more applications. For instance, WordPress offers the WordFense plugin, allowing you to perform malware scans. 
2. If you are a client of HostArmada, you can check for malware using the Imunify360 functionality in the cPanel. To access it, please log into your cPanel and under the “Security” section you will find the “Immunify360” icon.  When you click it, it is going to display a list of all the malicious files it has detected and will give you a choice if it should quarantine them or remove them. 
3. You could employ professional security experts such as Sucuri so they can scan the site and remove any malware that may be causing Google's feedback.
4. The last alternative you have, if you face such a situation, would be a complete backup restore procedure. This involves retrieving an older version of your website that will hopefully contain a clean version of the same. While this can cause you to lose some of your progress on the site, it could save your entire website as a whole. We perform daily incremental snapshots of your account and if you need assistance with this, please contact our technical team and request a restoration from one of the available dates in the “File Backups” functionality of the cPanel service. If you feel confident enough to do it on your own, you can follow our tutorials on the matter here.

If you do not feel comfortable with the above situations, then you should contact our technical support team and ask to assist you with this. In a lot of situations, they will be able to help you out, however, if the infection runs really deep, you will definitely have to request the assistance of a professional security expert, such as the one listed above. 

After performing any of the above, the site may continue showing this error message. If this is the case, you should check Google's page in regards to requesting a website review, which will clean its reputation and remove the unwanted page.

How can I prevent this from happening in the future?

Unfortunately, while the server may be armed with a lot of security features, any loopholes within your application's code remain exploitable by hackers. Your best defense against such attacks is to keep your application, its plugins, themes, and modules up to date as each vendor that supports a specific application and its functionalities will surely release security patches regularly to protect his clients. 

Another thing you can do to prevent this from happening in the future is to initiate regular scans, using one of the methods explained in the previous paragraphs. Make sure you also change your passwords for your website, cPanel, and Client Area once every couple of months just for security measures.