With more and more people turning towards the Internet, business owners have capitalized on this opportunity and started operating online through the means of websites. However with rapidly rising Internet users, the number of cyber crimes committed on a daily basis has also risen.
Websites are being targeted at an astoundingly large scale, almost 6x compared to last year with the insurge of new users.Therefore its important for you to take necessary steps in order to safeguard your website as there’s no telling when you will be targeted.
If your website is ever hacked then your sales will take a massive hit as well as your reputation in the field. Consumers will start to lose their trust in you, which will result in your website traffic plummeting. Your organic growth will lessen as a result which ultimately impact your SEO.
While you can take steps yourselves in order to secure your website, it is always recommended that you out source this job to a professional. When you take upon this task yourself there is a possibility that you might overlook some important aspects of your website’s security. Hackers need only one lose link in the chain in order to exploit your entire security. And once they gain access to your website it can spell a catastrophic disaster.
Now a question must’ve arose as to which is the better option for you. To decide that, let’s take a look at the various costs associated with recovering a hacked website as compared to taking appropriate measures in securing your website in the first place.
Table of contents
Troubleshooting:
When we notice something odd about your website, the first thing that comes to your mind is whether it has been hacked. And to determine that you need to troubleshoot your website. That includes seeing if your original configurations are intact, if they are tampered with what were the changes and lastly how the changes were made as in how was your website hacked.
If you conclude that your website was indeed hacked, next you need to find out the type of attack that was used and how severe it was. As you spend time figuring all of this out, you lose money in sales that could’ve been avoided if there was no downtime in your website.
Hosting Support:
Depending on the type of plan you have taken up with your website hosting provider, you will need to contact them if your website ever gets hacked.
You will need to explain them the issue, the problems that you are facing all the while providing proofs along the way. And this is only when your plan includes support during such situations and is not considered as an add-on. All of this translates in to lost time and money.
Third Party Support:
In case your hosting provider doesn’t provide the support you need and you don’t have the technical expertise or time to deal with the problem yourself, you will have to resort to using a third party service provider who can do the job for you.
Of course this includes the risk whether the concerned individual or company is actually up to the task and whether they have the knowledge and expertise to fix your website. Also all of this is going to cost you some money depending upon the type of service provider you choose.
Restoring the Website:
Worst case scenario, if you haven’t taken a backup or a copy of your website, it’s going to make a sizeable dent in your bank statement to restore it. You will need to change your secret keys and password salts as well as reset them.
You will need to clean your database in case some malicious code is left behind, delete all the corrupted content. You will also need to get your website off Google’s blacklist and notify all your users about it’s reopening.
Data Loss:
When running a business it’s important to collect information about your customers, about your business and about your competition. In the event of a cyber attack if you happen to lose this data, you will lose all the hard work and effort that you have put in and start to rebuild from scratch.
This can hamper your business seriously. On top of this, your customer’s trust is breached as they can longer vouch for you to keep their data safe. If the stolen data consists of confidential information you can face a barrage of lawsuits which can break your bank even further.
Now let’s have an overview on what it takes to simply amp up the security of your website in the first place. Firstly you’ll need to have a good hosting provider who gives you an inclusive plan covering all possible worst case scenarios that you might face. Secondly you will need to invest in good and reputable security plugins that will help protect your website and notify you in the event of a cyber attack.
You should keep in mind to always update to the latest version of whatever software you are using. That includes your core software, your plugins and your themes. Lastly you will need to obtain an SSL certificate in order to put the icing to the cake that is your website. Following these steps will ensure that your website will have the maximum amount of protection that it can get.
By keeping the above differences in mind, it is crystal clear that having your website breached won’t result in only a monetary loss. The hit your business reputation and trust will take is far greater than a few thousand dollars. Therefore a word of advice to the wise, it is more responsible of you to choose to defend you website in the first place rather than pick up the pieces later.
We hope that we were able to provide you with some insights regarding the advantages of having security measures in place for your website rather than paying for recovering a hacked website. We hope that you will keep the above points in mind and arrive at the right decision for you.
