Quick summary
A WordPress recovery note about staging an original backup locally, cleaning import files, refreshing core, and quarantining suspicious inactive assets.
The problem
The recovery needed to preserve active production content while separating the working site from stale, risky, or malware-like files.
What I checked
- Original site backup and database dump
- Local WordPress configuration
- Active themes, plugins, uploads, and security rules
- Old staging, backup, cache, and platform artifact folders
- Suspicious top-level PHP and displaced plugin or theme files
What I changed
- Staged the backup and database dump in a local WordPress environment
- Cleaned the SQL dump into import-ready database files
- Configured local database connection and import tooling
- Refreshed core WordPress files while preserving active content
- Created quarantine areas for inactive, stale, risky, and malware-like files
Result
The recovery environment became easier to inspect because active site assets were preserved while questionable leftovers were isolated.
What I'd watch next
- Whether quarantined files are needed before final removal
- Whether production upload limits and security rules need mirrored during deployment
- Whether fresh scans stay clean after restoring the cleaned package