WordPress Support Services
How things have changed since I first began working online in 2005 (& why you need to protect your website on an ongoing basis)
A year in the life of the Internet is often referred to as that of dogs- 7 human years for every online one – “Every single year we’d see about seven years worth of change. If you say the commercial internet kicked off in the mid-90s, then we have about 20 years times seven, so 140 years of change and evolution. The commercial web is barely out of its teens, so we are still just scratching the surface of what’s possible and what’s doable“.
The speed at which technology advances daily is superfast and as our businesses are part of this online world we need to stay up to speed with these changes.
As with all human created spaces there is always a percentage out to do no good – in the form of spammers, data thieves and simply malicious behaviour. “Regardless of the size of your website audience or the cost of your hosting plan, criminals will happily find a way to monetize it if they can break in“, as this Wordfence article explains:
“Let’s look at some of the ways cybercriminals leverage your resources to make money.
One of the newest is cryptocurrency mining, which is a computationally intense process that puts your web server’s computing power to work on behalf of the attacker.
Hosting phishing pages remains a popular way to leverage a hacked website. A phishing page is one that attempts to fool you into sharing sensitive information, like your password, credit card number or social security number. An example of a phishing page is a fake login page that gives you the impression you are on an online banking login screen. You enter your credentials and the attacker logs them and can now sign into your real online banking account and steal data.
Because your site has a clean reputation, when attackers host phishing pages on your site, services like Google Safe Browsing that would normally warn users about suspicious websites won’t know to alert visitors to the danger of the phishing page. Well, until the phishing pages are reported. Then, you may end up on a blacklist.
Another very common thing attackers do with hacked websites is add redirects to their content. Visitors to your site don’t even have to click on a hyperlink to visit the spam site–the redirect will just take them there directly.
One especially nefarious way attackers monetize hacked websites is to use them to spread malware. They install website malware that installs PC malware on your visitors’ computers or devices when they visit your site.
As a site owner, this is especially scary, as not only do you risk having your site flagged as malicious by search engines and other blacklists, but your visitors — potential customers and prospects — are not going to be happy with you.
Your reputation, both online and with your site visitors, could be damaged for a long time. In addition, a hacked website can have a long-term negative impact on your search engine rankings”.
Luckily, you don’t need to be a security expert to keep your site safe as we can help set up a Protection Plan that includes Wordfence Pro, Backups and Monthly Update Check for you.
WP Protection Plan:
- Receive real-time Firewall and Scan engine rule updates for protection as threats emerge
- Real-time IP Blacklist blocks the most malicious IPs from accessing your site
- Country blocking
- IP reputation monitoring
- Schedule scans to run more frequently and at optimal times
- Monthly backup creation via your hosting provider
- *Monthly Update check for plugins, themes and core files with testing of site afterwards
You can’t afford the downtime, reputation challenges or SEO impact of getting hacked. Subscribe today and stay safe online.
*Whilst most updates will not adversely affect your website, on occasion and dependant on your theme/customizations/third party software etc issues may arise as a result of a WordPress/Plugin update due to outdated themes involved or plugins that have not been updated for a long time.
Our aim is always to keep your site working safely and well with as little interruption and hassle as possible.
Did you know we also offer custom designed digital management & content creation to suit your needs with monthly retainers to suit your budget?
Despite having the very best intentions many busy and successful businesses simply don’t have time to update their website, or when they do it takes too long, leaving them feeling frustrated and tired.
Our 20 years of online expertise and knowledge allows us to do in one hour what often takes the average employee two to three times that. Plus we’ll make sure it’s all been correctly optimised and formatted to be search engine friendly…
We offer custom designed digital management & content creation to suit your needs with monthly retainers to suit your budget