It’s important to know how to protect your website from hackers. Often hackers hack because they want to steal your personal information, credit card information, banking information and passwords so they can make money, fast. Not only do they want to steal from you, a lot of the time they also want to steal from your customers. They find vulnerabilities in your software and abuse it until they can bend your site to their will.
To guard from hackers you must do more than just have a great website and let it sit there. It needs constant updating. Once plugins become outdated or show a weakness you can be sure that hackers are lurking to take advantage of it. If you slack off and don’t update regularly, you will attract them to your website.
If you are wondering if you have been hacked, but you aren’t sure, you can find out. Just Google your business and look at the listing. If, under the headline, it says “this site may harm your computer” it means that you have been hacked. If you are fearless and click the link anyway, you will get a popup about malware being installed on the site and there being a high chance that your computer will be infected with it. Not exactly what you want your customers to see when they click on your website is it? If there are no obvious signs that your site has been hacked but you want to check it anyway visit the search engine ranking report and use their free malware scanner tool. If you catch a hack early, you can limit the damage it has.
Fixing the damage that has been done by hacks can be a painstaking process. It can cost thousands of euros and your reputation may already be damaged beyond repair. If your website has been blacklisted as a result of a hack then it takes time to rebuild your content and get de-blacklisted. To prevent hacks on your website, always keep it up to date. If you don’t have time to do so, hire someone to do it. Prevention is always better than cure. But if you have to cure it, call in the professionals. Either for a full rebuild or to clean up the mess that was left behind by the hackers.