Regular website maintenance - Part 2: Make website secure & keep pests away

The horror for every gardener:

No sooner does the garden blossom in the most splendid colours than voracious pests make themselves at home.
If aphids, ants and slugs feed unhindered through your garden, the splendour of your plants will soon be over.

Now you must act quickly to avert the worst chaos!

Or better yet:
You don't even let it get that far! It's the same with your homepage. Through regular maintenance, you can make your website secure and thus achieve the best protection against hacker attacks.

What is a "hacked website"?

In most cases, a website consists of a content management system such as WordPress, Contao or Typo3. This is an interaction of files and data from a database.

Website visitors normally have read-only access to the data on your homepage. They can look at the pages and only use certain functions. For example, they can fill out a form or log into your online shop to buy something.

A hacker manages to either gain write access to your website or read protected areas of your database. This allows him to access sensitive information such as email addresses or account data of customers of your online shop. This is of course a huge disaster for data protection! To prevent data theft, you as a website operator must make your website secure against such attacks.

Once a hacker has write access, he can cause a lot of damage. With the help of infected software (malware), he can manipulate your website almost at will. One example is links on your page. Suddenly, existing links that are supposed to lead to sub-pages are reprogrammed in such a way that they lead to propaganda pages, for example.

Or the malware eats its way through your online shop and makes your visitors believe they are in a fake login area. As soon as the visitors log in, the malware collects these login data and can steal personal data.

What consequences does a hacker attack have for you?

A hacked website is like a break-in into your house and primarily means enormous stress for you as a business owner.

• The legal damage:
  As a website operator, you have responsibility over your homepage. You must ensure sufficient protection against hacker attacks when managing sensitive data. If cyber criminals had an easy time, you face legal consequences. Even if you can prove in court that you acted correctly, a legal dispute always brings a lot of trouble and stress.
• The financial damage:
  A hacker attack causes high costs. In most cases, you need professional help to repair the technical damage. This means you have to find a web agency at lightning speed that has the time and capacity to help you ad hoc via emergency service. Then there are the costs of a possible legal dispute, not to mention the loss of your online business, which may not be recoverable.
• The image damage:
  A hacked website means loss of trust! If masses of spam mails are sent in your name or dubious sites are linked, this damages the reputation of your company. It can lead to customers and partners preferring to go to the competition.
• The temporal damage:
  Besides all the hassle, of course, it takes time to get everything back to normal. A website can be hacked in a second, getting everything back in order can take days, weeks and even months.

Attention, money-savers: Prevention is worth its weight in gold

Investing regularly in website security is much cheaper than calling for professional help in an emergency.

Web agencies offer effective protection against hacker attacks with monthly security packages. If malicious software then takes root, this is noticed immediately and can be remedied immediately with small measures.

The process is similar to pest control in the garden: When you discover the first aphids, you may still be able to drive them away with small household remedies such as washing-up liquid and coffee. If you have a complete pest infestation on your doorstep due to negligent garden maintenance, control becomes increasingly time-consuming and costly.

Especially for small businesses that want to achieve the greatest benefit with little budget, our security & maintenance package is worthwhile. If you want to make your website secure, we will be happy to support you. You can read what our detailed service package includes here:
https://mainetcare.de/leistungen-und-preise/wordpress-rundumsorgt-paket/

Authors: Michael Mai & Nana Nkrumah