What a year 2020 has turned out to be!

Viruses are everywhere, even on the web. With the advent of COVID-19 people had more time on their hands and so did the hackers, and that is bad news for you as a website owner.

How many websites are hacked every day?

On average 30 000 new websites are hacked every day. These 30 000 sites are usually legitimate small businesses sites, that are unwittingly distributing malware.

The fact that WordPress is such a popular CMS, which motivates more attackers to develop attack tools and try their luck in searching for security holes in the code.

How does it happen?

There are many, many ways a website can be hacked. Here are some common ways hackers can take control of your website:

Guessing your password.
Using malware on your local computer to capture your login credentials.
Finding a security vulnerability in specific software that you happen to be using (especially outdated software).
Hacking someone else’s site that resides on the same shared-server that you are using for your site.

If your website has been hacked, it is critical to understand how it happened in order to prevent another hack by the same hacker.

How do I protect my business?

Getting your website hacked is no fun. But you are able to recover from it. So stay calm and call in the right support team to get it fixed and running again. While we’ve just skimmed the surface of the process needed to clean the site, having the right support team in place can make a big difference.

“Cybercrime is the greatest threat to every company in the world.”

IBM’s chairman, president and CEO

A study was made that stated that there is an attack every 39 seconds on average on the web and the non-secure usernames and passwords that are being used give attackers more chance of success.

(Source: Security Magazine)

What happens to a hacked site

When a site is hacked is may be blacklisted – this an negatively influence you search index ratings and scare away potential customers.

Your website may become the unintentional distributor of Malware or viriuses to all its visitors.

Your computer can be used to attack other computers.

Cyber attacks will:

modify files,
retrieve information,
insert commands or scripts,
change the way your website and Google Search Results look to visitors.

Website malware attacks are not uncommon for the most part. You’ve probably heard some of the most popular ones, such as:

Trojans,
Adware,
Worms,
Viruses,
Spyware..
Some cyber attackers will place:
Popups,
Interactive links,
Forms,
Fake login boxes

Stealing passwords: With both hijacked usernames and stolen passwords, the hacker could go online—at any time—to impersonate you digitally and use your credit accounts for illegal purchases.

Conclusion

There is no antivirus software that can detect all malware in the world. But make sure you have some peace of mind.

Don’t just take our word for it – here are some resources: