The growth of the internet has provided website owners with unique business opportunities. Unfortunately, that growth also attracts those who want to steal your website files and sensitive information. As your website grows and it moves to the top ten page ranking on the major search engines, it will also be that much easier for bandits to find your website. They can then easily change your files, damage them or steal them if you do not have website protection, website security.
Having a website isn’t just a simple matter of getting something set up and playing with the content every now and then. Because your website represents your business on the internet, that makes it a potential target for hackers. You might think it won’t happen to you – why would hackers go for you when there are huge high profile targets around? The sad fact is that big companies can employ legions of experts to ensure their website stays safe and secure. You have limited resources, and may be relying on the company that designed your website a few years ago.
Since the first discovery of "worms" on the internet, the Web has proven to be the primary place where bad guys lurk, looking for poorly secured websites to plant malicious code. And, they find plenty. According to the 2009 Security Threat Report from Sophos, one new infected Web page is discovered every 4.5 seconds.
The Internet has become a playground for criminals who leverage its universal accessibility to commit small to large crimes. It's wise to stay abreast on how to protect your data, brand, and business from web threats. Web-based threats are increasing in number and severity. The consequences of becoming infected can be extensive and cause significant damage to your revenue, reputation and long-term survival.
What many people do not realize is that by improving their website security, they can improve their sales. Customers say that the security of a website is the number one reason why they do or do not shop on particular websites.
The odds are very great in that you can be hit by an automated drive-by attack that is playing a percentage game, with malicious requests being launched against millions of websites, from hundreds of malicious servers. Criminals use these automated tools to attack websites - just registering a new domain name will mean it gets scanned for vulnerabilities and potentially targeted.
If your website gets hacked and someone gets access to your site, they can change anything they want and can do an extraordinary amount of damage as shown below: - Alter .html, .php, and other text web pages, usually to inject iframes, links or other malicious code. - Modify database tables, usually to inject the same types of content listed above, so it will appear on your pages. - Add new files - Add executable programs to let the attackers "manage" your website files remotely, grant them access even after you clean up (back doors), send spam, connect to IRC servers for botnet communications, mass-attack other websites, etc.
Sometimes a hacking attack is not used for just mere vandalism. This hacking activity can be about hijacking websites and using them to generate links to other sites to game the search engines: - The hackers find a security hole and get inside your site. - They take control through scripts that turn your site into a link-generating drone. - The links generated on your site (without your knowledge) are pointed at other sites, in an effort to get those other sites to the top of search engine results.
Big or Small, no Website or Company is safe. Investigations have shown that there are about 20 hacker conferences every year. Why do they do it? For fun, satisfaction, a challenge, a greater feeling of self-worth? Who knows.
When a Google search for "my website has been hacked" was conducted, it showed at the time, 3.63 million hits for peaple searching that phrase.
I am sure that you will agree that these results are frightening! Do you still think it can't happen to you? Don't be fooled by a false sense of security.