One of the reasons why your site has become a hacked website is that when you originally set up your Company website, you used an ‘off the shelf’ solution such as WordPress, Joomla or other Content Management Systems (CMS) to create a professional look and feel to your companies on-site presence.
Hacked WordPress Website ? Hacked Joomla ?
By making this choice you, like millions of other companies, have chosen an excellent quick efficient web solution. However – and this is the scary bit – once a hacker can infiltrate a particular version of these types of website setups or find a vulnerability in a version of a theme or common plugin on one it is fair to say they can access all of them that are setup in the same way. It’s a bit like reading one too many books from your favourite novelist and knowing how the story is going to end. So whether you are Hank’s garage.net or Randy’s nailbar.com if you have used a standard website setup like so many other companies you are vulnerable.
I would also like to take a moment to say that no-one should have issues with their CMS whose role is to make things look instantly beautiful swirly and creative and it is not their fault that hackers are out there. Don’t blame the Angels for the Demons!
The Effects of a Hacked Website
When your site has been violated it is NOT going to be instantly recognisable – think about it, in a small percentage of cases a hacker is going to want to take your site down, in these cases the hack is personal and targeted. However nine times out of ten the hacker wants to use your site to sell products or to host hidden pages or to use your websites email system of your hacked website to generate spam or phishing campaigns As far as they are concerned, the less you know the better!
It could be many months before you realise you ARE hacked and before you can do anything about it you have become blacklisted by Google.
DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY – It doesn’t matter whether you are running your own business or a ‘not for profit’ site the hackers will use your domain impartially because you have a site they can easily break into.
HOWEVER!!!!
Your users (customers, friends followers etc.) do have the right for a safe experience. I am sure we have all experienced the horror of inadvertently having a rogue email either sent to us or, even worse, from us at some point? Consider that by not keeping your website secure you have not only risked your own security but that of ALL your users! This is bad news for ANY sites reputation be it business or not for profit – No-one is going to want to be associated with a hacked website that has risked not only their own security but the security of their client / contact base!
And – once you have been hacked not only is the trust with your client base / followers broken, but you are seeing the next attack behind every slowing in the system or temporary glitch – in short your piece of mind has been Sacrificed.
It makes business sense to get that key layer of security added to your site, in many cases these services can act as an SEO so by waying up the nominal cost versus your piece of mind and customer satisfaction it is the only way to go. Speak to your security specialist today to ensure your company and customer base stay safe.
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