A Shopify store owner’s website is being flagged as \
Hi, I would appreciate it if someone could help me with this problem. For the past week, when I try to access my website, my malware blocker blocks me from entering the website; it says it’s an “infected website.” It was not like this two weeks ago, and I have no clue what caused it.
Thanks.
Hi @PNPLEX
I can see you are new here! You are very welcome in the Shopify Community.
I totally understand how seeing something like that would be alarming. You mentioned that you are using a malware blocker - what is the name of this blocker, and is it software installed on your device, or a browser extension maybe? Have you recently made any changes on your store such as added third party apps or scripts that might be triggering this?
In some rare cases, a store may show a browser pop-up or page redirect due to third-party software that is installed on the device accessing the store. It could even be one of your customers who may report this to you. It is generally some sort of message similar to the one you have described, that flags the Shopify storefront as having “unsafe” content.
Almost all of these types of alerts tend to be false positives, and are due to the specific way the third-party software detects issues on sites. If it was a valid positive result for unsafe content on Shopify, or an ‘infected website’ as you described it, we would be seeing reports across all of Shopify rather than just one shop (which I am happy to say we are not!).
We take every precaution possible to ensure that Shopify stays safe. One example of this is our public bug bounty program hosted through HackerOne, that helps us keep ahead of any vulnerabilities in our platform. We reward security researchers who find vulnerabilities on Shopify with a maximum bounty of $100,000 which gives an example of how seriously we treat merchant trust & safety.
If you are seeing errors like this on your store, it is usually best to follow up directly with the software vendor (such as McAfee, Norton, etc.) to report this flag as a false positive. If you can provide any further evidence that there is a real issue, then please do so and I can assist you with the next steps. Providing as much information as possible, such as specific URLs, the vulnerability in question, and any screenshots of the exact error/warning would be great!
Hey Rick, thank you so much for replying! As you mentioned the malware blockers that I’m using are Avast and McAfee. My website was working perfectly fine until 2 weeks ago. I am glad to hear that it’s most likely a false alarm, but is there a way to get rid of it? I will provide a screenshot of what it looks like.
Hi @PNPLEX
You are very welcome! Thank you for getting back with those screenshots.
I can see what you mean, yes. It looks like your antivirus software is indeed identifying your store URL as a threat. I can definitely understand why you would want to get rid of those messages, as I am sure they are inconvenient to deal with.
I am wondering if there’s any way you could add your URL to a whitelist, or mark it as safe in the software? That might prevent those messages from appearing on your machine again.
However, it might be best to reach out to Avast directly and ask if you can get more information on these warnings, and ask how they would recommend dealing with them going forward. You could also then report the flag as a false positive which would prevent others from seeing it too. I found a page on their website that looks like it allows you to submit false positive reports - check it out here.
I had a look at your store by the way, I really like how the store looks! It’s clean and easy to navigate. I had a couple of suggestions for ways you can improve it even more:
Hi Rick, thanks for getting back to me! As you mentioned, I decided to contact Avast. However, if it’s not an actual virus that caused this do you have a guess what did? Also thanks for the suggestions I just added my Favicon and I’m working on the about us page.
Thanks.
You are very welcome @PNPLEX
I am glad to hear you are implementing those two suggestions and that’s great to hear you have contacted Avast about this.
I would love to be able to advise on what caused that software to trigger that warning, however as it’s completely external to us I wouldn’t be able to provide any more insight in addition to what I mentioned above.
Avast themselves should hopefully be able to provide you with a more detailed explanation! If you end up gathering more evidence that there is a real genuine issue and not just a false positive (more than just the warning itself), then feel free to contact our support team here and we can collect some details from you and go from there.
Awesome! Thank you so much for your help! We’ll see what happens… 
Hey, Rick sorry again. I have discovered that my website appears “infected” on all platforms. Should I be contacting Google?
Thanks
Hello again @PNPLEX
There’s no need to be sorry, we’re always happy to help whenever we can!
When you say that you discovered the website is ‘infected’ on all platforms - what do you mean? Do you mean that more than one anti-virus software is detecting the website as dangerous and showing a warning?
You mentioned about contacting Google. While it is true that sometimes domains can be flagged as unsafe by Google which can cause some issues, on this occasion it looks like your specific domain is OK and is returning the message of ‘No unsafe content found’. Feel free to check the Google safe browsing site status and enter your URL to confirm this yourself.
I see you are using a custom domain for your store, did you purchase this on Shopify or through a third party domain provider?
Hey Rick, Avast got back to me, and now it doesn’t warn me anymore! (mission accomplished.) However, it still does on other software such as McAfee. Do I have to contact them all?
Thanks.
Hey @PNPLEX
That is great to hear, well done!
While it’s certainly possible that they all operate from one database of warnings, and whitelisting your store domain with Avast could update the others - I am not in a position to advise on that, as it is completely external to Shopify.
If you have confirmed that your store is still triggering those unsafe warnings when using other software, then I would recommend contacting each one you find to let them know. Although tedious, it might be the best way to remove those warnings and ensure customers do not see them when visiting your Shopify store. You could also ask Avast about this, they might be able to advise on the best next steps.
Yeah, I guess. Thanks, Rick!
I have the same issue, worked for a couple of days, and got malware notification, i am using AVG and MalwareBytes.
Hi!
I have had this same issue, but its potential customers that are warning me that that same message is showing up when they try to access my shopify website. It works just fine for me. Is it possible to fix this so it wont show an “unsafe content” message?
Thank you!
Julie
