Argh! My Website Has Been Infected!

Written by Stacy Bass

We’ve all read the headlines when cyber attacks occur; Company X had millions of their customer credit card transactions compromised, Company Y had millions of people’s personal information accessed, Hacker Z gained access to some government agency, and so on.  It is a widely accepted fact of life that we must all take measures to protect our sensitive information to keep it from those who would use it for nefarious purposes.  You follow all the rules, take the precautions, but one day you receive a call from a customer letting you know that their anti-virus software won’t let them access your website because it has been hacked.  Argh! 

Of course, the first thing you ask is how did this happen and why was my website targeted?  Your website may not collect sensitive information or process credit card transactions, but that does not mean that you are any more immune.  The reality is that no website or company is immune from being infected.  Type “hacking attacks 2014” into your search engine and you’ll see big names like Sony PlayStation, JP Morgan & Chase, EBay, and so on, and that’s just for this year!  You may think that those are big companies, surely they are more profitable targets than your small business, after all it’s not like some hacker is going to hit pay-dirt by hacking your website.  Most often the intent is to create havoc by gaining access to your host account, uploading malware, accessing databases, etc. The truth is that it is unlikely that a single hacker is sitting behind his or her computer with your website locked in the cross hairs.  Instead, today’s ill-intended hackers are creating botnets, a network of computers infected with malicious software and controlled as a group without the owners' knowledge.  Bots, infected computers sometimes also referred to as zombies, are then used for purposes such as sending spam, distributing viruses and spyware, stealing personal and/or financial information, launching DoS (Denial of Service) attacks, and creating clickfraud to boost web advertising revenue by auto clicking on internet ads.  The unfortunate reality is that it is virtually impossible to 100% protect yourself from becoming a victim.  

So armed with this knowledge, how do you protect yourself as much as possible?  First, make sure that all of your computers are updated with anti-virus software and that your anti-virus software is kept up-to-date, scans all emails and runs in the background at all times.  Second, make sure that your local servers have adequate firewalls in place.  Third, if the anti-virus software alerts you to a potentially harmful email or website, take heed of the warning.  Fourth, make sure that all your passwords are strong.  A strong password should contain a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols.  For example, “Password1”, your user name, etc. are NOT considered strong passwords, while something along the lines of “aWp*45-zbK” would be recommended.  Fifth, change your passwords regularly, including the passwords on your website’s host account control panel, content management system and FTP access, and keep you passwords private at all times.  Lastly, there are companies that provide website scanning services for a monthly fee ranging from $29 - $139 per month for those willing to incur a monthly expense for an additional added layer of protection. 

Any host provider would love nothing more than to be able to provide guarantees to their clientele that they will never fall victim to an infected website.  With a reported 1.7 billion plus of web-originated attacks in 2013, it is not unlikely that any of us could experience such an infection.  The best advice is to follow is to adhere to the protections outlined above.  We hope that you never find yourself having to deal with an infected website, however should you find yourself in that unfortunately position, immediately change all passwords then give us a call and we’ll get through it together.

Select Web Solutions is always eager to help our customers find the best web strategy for each of our clients.  We would welcome the opportunity to build or update your existing web strategy to meet the needs of today’s technology driven world.  Select Web Solutions is an Orange County website development company in Rancho Santa Margarita, CA.  Our products include Orange County custom website solutions, WebZeo affordable websites in Orange County, MobZeo Orange County mobile websites,  ProZeo Orange County social media profiles,  ListZeo Orange County Website Business Listing Service, SendZeo Orange County newsletter marketing, MailZeo hosted email services in Orange County, SEOLight affordable Orange County SEO, and much more.  

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Select Web Solutions, LLC, an Orange County, CA website developer in Rancho Santa Margarita, CA. Select Web Solutions is a provider of web services in Orange County; including  custom website design in Orange County, MobZeo affordable affordable website development in Orange County, MobZeo mobile websites in Orange County, website hosting, online marketing in Orange County, search engine optimization in Orange County, social media services in Orange County, newsletter services, email services, logo design and web consulting in Orange County, California.