We have all heard of various hacking incidents that have hit major corporations around the world. These million dollar companies certainly have a lot to lose when it comes to the loss of security customers may feel when they are hacked. Secure hosting is important. Your online business may not be a mega-million corporation yet, but that doesn’t make hacking unlikely.
Why Sites Are Attacked
There are plenty of reasons why a hacker may target a website. The three most popular reasons, however, are financial gain, challenges, and hacktivisim.
Financial gain is one of the leading factors when it comes to hacking. First and foremost, there is the most obvious way to profit from attacking your website: pilfering credit card numbers and personal information from your customers or you. For example, the 2008 Heartland Payment Systems hacking event exposed 134 million credit cards to a spyware that was only caught once Visa and MasterCard notified the company of hundreds of suspicious transactions. However, this is not the only way a hacker can profit from attacking your site. If you or your WordPress hosting provider does not maintain an up-to-date backup copy of your website, a hacker can pull a copy, deface of destroy it, and then demand money from you to restore it. A hacker may also be paid by a third party to corrupt, destroy, or damage your website for no other reason than it furthers the third party’s agenda. For example, if you promote a product or blog about a certain topic, a third-party opponent may pay a hacker to attack your site (and others like it) in an attempt to minimize exposure of those products or topics to the public.
Other hackers simply enjoy a challenge. These types of attacks tend to be wildcards. They can be done because a hacker is bored or curious. They may also hack your WordPress website because they are looking for bragging rights or to win a simple bet amongst colleagues.
“Hacktivism” is a term used to reference attacked based on a type of “-ism”. For example, religion, nationalism, human rights, anti-globalism, racism, sexism, and other such divisions has been known to lead to hacktivism activities. Often, these hacking attempts are focused primarily on defacing your website or stealing personal information. Hackers may then share this personal information publically, shaming your clients and destroying your credibility. The 2016 WikiLeaks attack that leaked emails from the Clinton campaign is a hacktivism example.
What Happens in a “Hack”?
Before we discuss what happens during a hack, we want to make it clear that regardless of your type of website, a hack is always possible. Websites of all types have been known to suffer from an attack by a hacker. Whether you are selling products online or simply blogging about your healthy lifestyle, a hack is always possible.
When someone hacks your website, there are plenty of varying ways in which they can do so. As stated above, they can pull a copy of your website, damage the code or alter your message and demand money to correct it. They can lock you out of your own WordPress website, preventing you from accessing it. They may deface your website or even hide a contradicting message within your pages to damage your credibility. They can distribute private information to the public, causing your clients or associates to lose faith in your brand.
What Is Secure Hosting?
Secure WordPress hosting is one of the primary barriers that help keep hackers from being able to damage your website. Today’s secure hosting includes a combination of secure hypertext transfer protocol (HTTPS) encryptions and secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate validations. This two-factor authentication process helps secure WordPress hosting efforts by establishing an interior dialogue that will help your server verify the identity of the user.
At BionicWP, we understand how critical secure WordPress hosting is to your business, blog, or hobby site. Because of this, we take all our clients’ WordPress hosting responsibilities seriously. Our WordPress hosting support is available at all times, night or day. While we offer live, unlimited 30-minute professional support, our security packages go beyond that. Our secure support service packages all include 90 days of off-site backups, real time monitoring, daily security scans, and much more.
We understand that each business and blog is unique. Our flexible WordPress hosting packages allow you to grow your business. In addition to our secure packages, we offer managed WordPress hosting that provides you with easy to use apps and widgets, a user-friendly dashboard, live support and Lorem ipsum services.
Hacking attacks are never predictable. Once they occur, it is hard for any business to recover from. Even if they did not financially drain your accounts, a single hacking event can destroy your clients’ confidence in your company.
If you want to learn more about how BionicWP can help you discourage and prevent hackers from accessing your WordPress site, contact us today.