What happens when your website gets hacked?
When a website gets hacked, the repercussions are often quite serious. What happens exactly depends on the goals of the hackers and the nature of your business, but in most cases, they will have access to a wide range of sensitive information. This can include anything from the website’s content and databases, to login credentials, and sensitive customer data.
Malware planting
A common outcome of a website hack, is that the attacker will use the website to distribute malware. This can include anything from viruses and trojans, to ransomware and spyware. These malicious programs can infect the computers of visitors to the website, potentially stealing sensitive information or causing other damage.
Phishing
Hackers can also use a hacked website to launch phishing attacks. They’ll frequently use the website to send out fake emails or messages, in an attempt to trick visitors into giving up personal information, such as login credentials or financial information.
Information theft
A simple plan of attack is that the hacker will steal personal and financial data of customers who use the website. This can include things like credit card numbers, personal information, and login credentials. A data breach of this kind can result in loss of revenue, damage to reputation, and legal penalties, if it can be proven that adequate measures were not taken to protect the data.
Website downtime
A website hack can also cause a significant amount of downtime for the business. The website may have to be taken offline while the hack is being investigated and cleaned up, which can result in further lost revenue and productivity. In some cases, the website may be completely destroyed, and have to be rebuilt from scratch. Even if the site can be recovered, if the business in question uses the website to sell products or services, a hack can lead to a loss of sales.
Legal ramifications
One thing to be aware of is that when a website gets hacked, it can also put the business at risk of legal action. Businesses have a legal obligation to protect customer data, and failure to do so can result in fines and other penalties.
Post hack recovery
The process of recovering from a website hack can be time-consuming and expensive. It often requires the business to hire cyber security experts such as the Mitigate Cyber team, to investigate the hack, and to clean up and restore the website. This might consist of restoring the website’s original content and design, as well as replacing any stolen or damaged files.
Clearly, when a website gets hacked, it can have serious consequences for the business that owns it. It can lead to defacement of the website, distribution of malware, phishing attacks, data breaches, financial loss, legal action, loss of customer trust, and damage to the reputation of the company.
It can also cause a significant amount of downtime, loss of sales and require a lot of time and money to recover. Therefore, it is important for businesses to take preventative measures to protect their websites from hacking, such as regular software updates, employee training, and incident response plans.