With the growing dependency on technology, accessibility to any company or businesses digital presence is becoming very important. Easy accessibility on an insecure website is harmful for the company’s image. A compromised website can cause irreparable damage to a company’s reputation.
Search engines like Google, black list compromised insecure websites. Hence no prospective customers will be able to search for the company or its information. This is a huge blow to a company’s business and can lead to loss of prospective customers. It is very important for a business owner to have his tracks covered, in short, keep his website secure.
There is a long list of reasons why website security is important, we have got together the 5 most important reasons why a company should consider strengthening their website’s security.
1. It is very common
Websites have been attacked by hackers since the emergence of the internet. Over the years, with growing security measures, their tactics have improved too. In 2016, it was reported by Google that the amount of website hacks had gone up by more than 30% over the previous year.
“We don’t expect this trend to slow down,” the report mentioned “As hackers get more aggressive and more sites become outdated, hackers will continue to capitalize by infecting more sites.”
A successful hacking attack can result in your website being blacklisted form top search engines. Currently, every week Google blacklists around 20,000 websites for malware and around 50,000 for phishing. Most companies and business owners believe that website hacking won’t happen to them, but the statistics have proved that an attack is very common.
2. Websites are not chosen for attack
Website hackers don’t plan and hack any website or business. The process of hacking is random. Hackers target their prospects by broadly searching for common vulnerabilities. A study by Symantec, says that over the last 3-4 years more than 75% of the websites which were scanned contained unpatched vulnerabilities. Almost 15% were deemed to be critical. This is not good news for small business owners as they might be thinking that a hacker won’t waste time hacking into small operations. Whereas the truth is that hackers will try to attack and gain access to any website they are able to penetrate.
Therefore businesses and companies need to make sure that someone is watching over their website, ensure that all the components are up to date and continuously keep updating their firewall software.
3. Reputation
Smart business owners very well know that one gets very few chances to make a good impression or to build a strong reputation. This is very true in the digital world, where the attention spans of the consumers is decreasing by the day.
If a prospective customer visits your website and contracts a virus or some malware in their device, be assured they won’t revisit your website anytime soon. There are chances that a customer may never reach your website, as many web browsers warn a customer before they enter any infected website. This warning is good enough to scare away your customers. Having up-to-date website security eradicates this possibility of losing your customer. If you have a professional company or person managing your website security at all times, it adds a degree of professionalism to your website.
4. Difficult to recover from Blacklist tag
A good reputation among your loyal customers is important, but it is equally important to build it among your potential new customers. Most consumers find businesses or products through a search engine, like google.
As a website owner, your top priority should be to maintain and improve your relationship and reputation with these search engines. Higher a search engine views you, it is more likely they will project your website better leading potential new customers your way.
Once a hacker enters a website, most search engines come to know about it. They immediately blacklist that website, basically stalling prospective new customers from finding your website in their search results. Once blacklisted, a website will lose almost 95% of its original traffic. This can result in serious damage to both revenue and sales.
Recovering from a blacklist is extremely difficult, it is just like rebuilding an image. As the web administrator, you would require to petition each server individually to remove your from blacklist, once the website is secure again. Getting yourself removed from the blacklist is a time-consuming and expensive affair. This can be easily avoided by implementing up to date security measures.
5. Website Security Expertise
Majority of the experts in the field believe that preventative action is much more valuable than recovery. Most of the times taking preventative action is a daunting and challenging task, but it is critical for maintaining a good reputation and image in the digital world.
While all this may sound complex and difficult to you, you are not required to understand each and every little detail. A talented software professional knows that hackers are always changing their techniques. A professional will adjust his counter strategy accordingly and manage the situation.
We at Velocity Consultancy, can help you plan your complete website security. Our expertise will ensure a safe and secure website for your business.