Posted by on August 11th, 2010 View Comments
Posted in Miscellaneous |
Internet crimes have been rising in frequency, so much so that identity thieves and hackers have made a living out of taking advantage of information being passed through the World Wide Web. Being hacked poses a serious threat, especially if the site owner is in possession of private information.
Effects of a Hacked Website
Being hacked poses a serious threat to your company in numerous ways. Most notable of these threats are:
• It can bring down your search engine rankings.
We in the SEO world know how hard it is to establish authority in the Internet and attain high page rankings. One attack from an Internet hacker can cause all of your years of hard work to go down the drain. Search engines are apathetic when it comes to these situations.
Google and other search engines are quick to point out websites that are hosting malware or have been hacked. This will instantly bring your page rankings down unless you remedy your situation immediately and make your site malware-free. Aside from this, the loss of rankings also result in loss of customer traffic since users will be forewarned that your website is hosting some malicious software and that their PCs may get infected in the process.
• Profit loss
If no visitors go to your website then you can expect that no revenue will be generated. You can also expect all of the advertisers in your site will be pulling out their investments since your site is not a revenue-generator for the time being.
• Customers will be more skeptical of your site
There are some times when search engines forget to label your website hacked or carrying malicious software. If this happens, you would still not dodge the axe since your infected site could steal personal information, addresses, and bank account numbers, affecting the trustworthiness of your website.
• You are held entirely liable for the damages that will be incurred.
This is especially so for websites that hosts their customers’ personal information. If your site gets hacked, you would be held liable for all the damages resulting from that hacking.
The reputation that your company had will also be affected and you may lose some of your loyal customers in the process.
How to Detect Different Types of Hacks and Avoid them
The most common types of hacker attack, according to the “The Web Hacking Incident Database 2009,” include:
1. SQL Database Injection
This is primarily caused by the lack of validation with regards to user input especially if a website uses web forms or URL query IDs. Sometimes hackers can provide poisoned queries to your website that will further compromise your site.
Another cause for this is poor database design and improper security privileges in your website. Some hackers use apps and add-ons in attacking your website. As you develop your website, make sure that apps and add-ons are not given access to your root database and that their overall access is kept at a minimum.
2. Content Spoofing
Content spoofing according to “The Web Hacking Incident Database 2009″ accounts for around 10% of all web hacks. Spoofing happens when a hacker “impersonates” your website and uses it to obtain confidential information such as passwords to your customers. Personal information like credit card numbers and social security numbers are one of the things targeted by content spoofing.
Content spoofing can also directly attack your website by producing duplicate content. It will bring your page rankings down and help you lose the trust that your customers have in your website.
Some ways with which you can fight content spoofing is to educate your customers about the various things that would determine whether they are dealing with an authentic website or not. From your site’s web protocols to examining the SSL certificates, users should be aware of how to prevent hackers especially if you are a merchant website hosting significant and confidential customer information.
You can also register your website’s domain as a trademark, this way no other hacker or web developer can use your domain but you. At least this gives you some protection against people who will try to use your domain for their own purposes.
Prevention is Better than Cure
So many clever ways have already been thought of by various Internet hackers just to retrieve information from websites. Being wary is just the first step of protecting yourself against these hackers.
It is advantageous to educate yourself and your customers about the various ways with which you can avoid the inconvenience of being hacked. Hacking is something that will be present as technology progresses. There is no better protection than a little education.
