You may think…why would anyone try to hack me?  And further more, why would I want to hire someone to hack your own website? As an e-Commerce owner, security is a huge concern. Our company invested tens of thousands of dollars into website development for improved security.  We built a completely solid infrastructure from the ground up (custom coded) to prevent this from every happening.  If you are an e-commerce business hosting valuable information within your website database, you might find it valuable to hire a hacker to attempt to hack your own website.  Therefore, this brings any security vulnerabilities to the forefront.  You can even hire a hacker on a “success” basis, so you pay if they are successful to hack your own website.

Hosting on GoDaddy or Siteground make it so simple for the everyday user to host their website without any worries. However, if you manage your own server like we did, you get to see how many bots are trying to access your server daily.  Something you don’t get to see on a managed server. Here’s a screen shot from a typical day for failed login attempts to our Cpanel.  This is why we had server management on staff for our web development company.

HERE ARE A FEW 4 REASONS WHY PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO HACK YOU:

1. Steal your customers information. Your customer list is one of the most important assets of any business. You may have competitors that want access to everyone you ever worked with. More commonly, customer information for credit card fraud is sold.
2. Sending out spam.
3. Injecting Viruses. Your hacked website is a great way to inject new ads on to all your pages or capture valuable passwords. Revenue is made from the pay per click ads or from the stolen client information.
4. Bragging rights. Hackers brag about what websites they were able to hack and post that online and you can find websites that show them. Everything from the Playstation Networks, to government or extremists groups. Or just because a student wanted to add a “chin nuts” beside the principals name on the website.

The main question that most users are guilty of is, how many sites do you use the same password too?  If the answer is yes, it’s likely that your common password has already been shared.

HERE’S 5 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO IMPROVE YOUR SECURITY:

1. Schedule regular backups on your server. Also don’t keep all of your eggs in one basket make sure to also take backups on a different server occasionally.
2. Use a malware scan that can help remove viruses, spyware, and other malware from your computer.  We use Malware Bytes.
3. Don’t use obvious passwords (like admin) or the same password on multiple accounts. Personally I use keyword managers like Roboform or Lastpass.
4. Hire a qualified professional to check for weak access points and reverse engineer them.
5. Perform regular audits of any credits/sales that went through.

We do not personally do not provide a hacking service. But if you are interested to hack your own website, contact us and we can refer you to a company we know will do an awesome job.