Is Your Business Website a Security Risk?

Your website is one of those things you set up once and then stop thinking about. It sits there doing its job, so there's no reason to touch it. That's exactly why a neglected website is one of the common ways a small business gets hacked.

Most small-business sites run on WordPress, which powers more than 40% of all websites, according to W3Techs. WordPress itself is solid. The risk is usually the plugins and themes added to it, which often don't get updated for years.

How a neglected website gets hacked

Attackers don't usually pick your business by name. They run automated tools that scan huge numbers of websites looking for known weak spots, like a plugin with a security hole that hasn't been fixed. When the tool finds one, it breaks in. It's all automatic, and it isn't aimed at you personally.

That's why old plugins are the problem. When a plugin maker finds a security flaw, they release an update to fix it. Until you install that update, the hole stays open, and the automated scanners know exactly what to look for. Security researchers who track WordPress flaws find that the large majority are in plugins and themes, not in WordPress itself.

What a hacked website is used for

A hacked website rarely announces itself. Instead of shutting your site down, attackers usually keep it running and use it for their own purposes:

Serving Malware

Your site gets changed so that visitors are infected or pushed to a page that tries to install something.

Spam and scam pages

Attackers add hidden pages selling fake goods or pushing scams, riding on your site's good standing with search engines.

Stealing form data

If your site has a contact or checkout form, a hacked site can copy what people type into it, including personal or payment details.

Redirects

Visitors who click your link get sent somewhere else, often a scam or malware site.

The damage lands on you even though the attacker was after your visitors. Search engines flag hacked sites with warnings and drop them down the rankings, and browsers may block them, so customers see a red "this site may be dangerous" screen instead of your homepage.

Is your website at risk?

It depends on how your site is built.

If you use a hosted website builder like Wix, Squarespace, or Shopify, most of the security and updates are handled for you behind the scenes, so your risk is lower.

If you have a self-hosted WordPress site, usually set up by a web designer or agency on your own hosting, then keeping WordPress, the plugins, and the themes updated is someone's job. The question is whose. On a lot of small-business sites, the honest answer is that nobody has touched it since it launched.

You can usually tell your site is at risk if you don't know who maintains it, it hasn't been updated in a year or more, or it's running plugins from a developer who has since disappeared.

How to keep your website safe

1. Remove plugins you don't use

Every extra plugin is another thing that can go wrong. If you're not using it, delete it.

2. Stick to well-known plugins

Use ones that are popular, well-reviewed, and updated recently. Avoid anything that hasn't been touched in years.

3. Watch for abandoned plugins

Sometimes a plugin stops being updated, or gets removed from the plugin store because of a security problem. When that happens it stops getting fixes, so check now and then that the plugins on your site are still supported, and replace any that aren't.

4. Lock down the admin login

Use a strong, unique password for the website's admin account, and turn on multi-factor authentication if your setup supports it.

5. Add a security plugin or web firewall

A reputable one can block common attacks and warn you when something changes. Your web host or IT provider can recommend one.

6. Keep backups

If the worst happens, a recent backup lets you restore the site instead of rebuilding it from scratch.

7. Know who’s responsible

Decide who looks after updates and security, whether that's your web designer, your IT provider, or your hosting company, and make sure it's clearly somebody's job.

What to do if your site is hacked

If your site does get hacked, moving quickly limits the damage:

Get help straight away

Restore a clean backup

If you have a backup from before the hack, restoring it is often the fastest fix. If you don't, the site will need to be cleaned by hand.

Cleaning a hacked site properly is a job for your web host, IT provider, or a website security service. Most hosts have dealt with this many times and can help.

Take the site offline

Putting up a simple "down for maintenance" page stops visitors from being harmed while it's cleaned up.

Update and tidy up before going back live

Update WordPress, the plugins, and the themes, and remove anything you don't recognize or no longer use, so the same hole doesn't get used again.

Change the passwords

From a device you know is clean, change the passwords for your hosting account and the website's admin login, and turn on multi-factor authentication.

Inform anyone whose data was affected

If the site handled customer details or payments, check whether any of that was exposed, and let those people know if it was.

How do you know if your website has been hacked?

Common signs are a warning from Google or your browser, a drop in search traffic, pages or pop-ups you didn't add, or your web host getting in touch about a problem.

Unsure? Feel as if something is not quite right? Our engineers will be able to investigate and advise on next steps.