If you’re seeing a Wordfence notice about a suspected malware URL in Rank Math, as shown in the screenshot below, we want to assure you that it is a false positive, and you need not worry about it.
Several users have reported that Wordfence has triggered this warning after installing Rank Math to the latest version 1.0.216.
The file update-1.0.42.php mentioned in the warning is an update routine file. It contains code to remove any erroneous redirections when the user updates to v1.0.42 (which was released 4 years ago). The recent update (v1.0.216) improved the code in this file according to WordPress Coding Standards, and Wordfence is incorrectly triggering a warning after this update.
If you’re seeing this issue on your site, then follow the below steps to get this resolved.
1 Update Wordfence to the Latest Version
Firstly, update WordFence to the latest version. They’ve released an update that addresses the issue with Rank Math, among other things. This step is crucial for ensuring that the issue you’re experiencing is covered by their latest improvements.
2 Update Rank Math to the Latest Version
Then, update Rank Math to its most recent version. You can check our changelog here for the latest updates.
Refer to this detailed tutorial to update Rank Math to the latest version →
And, that’s it! We hope these steps helped you resolve this issue on your site. If you’re still facing trouble, please feel free to open a support ticket here, and our support team would be more than happy to assist you.