Website hacking is more common than you may think, and when it comes to website security, a bandaid solution won’t cut it.

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Website Security

The costs of a website hack or security breach are significant, not just in monetary terms but in damage to reputation and potential loss of business, so it’s important to be one step ahead, rather than simply apply a bandaid after the damage has been done.

Here are three things you may not know about website security and cyber crime:

  1. Google may blacklist you. If your website becomes compromised, Google may remove your site from their index. This is to protect Google users from being inadvertently directed to a site which may put their own website, computer or software at risk. It’s estimated that blacklisted sites lose around 95% of their website traffic, so it’s definitely NOT good for business.
     
  2. Cyber crime takes many forms. Your site may be hacked for a variety of reasons, and it may not be specifically targeted – hackers will usually search broadly for vulnerabilities in websites, not seek out a specific target. Damage to your site could include theft of your own or your clients’ contact information (eg for on-selling), theft of passwords or identity information, sending out spam to your clients or contacts, posting inappropriate or specifically targeted content to your site, infecting your site or system with malware/viruses, or even crashing your site by overloading it with fake traffic. Whichever form it takes, it’s nasty and costly.
     
  3. Hackers gonna hack… and hack. Protecting your site is not as simple as applying a particular security measure and then continuing on with business as usual. Hackers are constantly finding ways around website security. You may have heard of the term ‘applying a patch’ which is when it becomes known that a hacker may have found a ‘hole’ in a security system, and the system releases a ‘patch’ to cover the hole and offer better protection. Keeping your website’s security up to date by applying patches and other relevant updates, is therefore essential.

What can you do?

Protecting your website doesn’t need to be costly or time consuming, but it does require diligence. Not only do you need to ensure your web hosting software and anti-virus tools are adequate, it’s also important to keep your website software up to date by applying patches and updates continually – just like you would with your computer.

Joyer hosted websites are well protected with the latest hosting software and anti-virus tools, and Joyer offers a website maintenance program to ensure your website software remains protected and up to date. We can save you the hassle of juggling the various tasks, and ensure your site receives more than an ineffective bandaid that is applied too late.