Why Would Hackers Target My Site?
February 3, 2020
Hackers will target ANY website for a variety of reasons. Just because you have a small business or relatively simple site doesn't mean you are immune from attacks and disruptions of your website.
As an example, one of our clients is a small business in the home construction industry with a fairly simple WordPress website. In January 2020, there were over 9,400 intrusion attempts on his website from China alone (the total number of attack attempts was over 10,000)! This site received the highest number of attacks that month out of all our clients.
Thanks to the yearly Security & Maintenance plan my client is subscribed to, however, their website remained secure and unaffected by the relentless attacks.
So why would hackers target a seemingly innocuous site such as this one? Here are a few of the many possible reasons:
Cyber Warfare: Countries such as China target business websites in the United States to cause disruption to our economy. This is part of an on-going cyber campaign that most technically capable countries in the world are actively involved in.
Crypto Mining: Bitcoin and other crypto currency needs to be "mined" and this requires massive computing power. Hackers try to take over the server your site is running on by hacking your site as a doorway to this free computing power. They can then earn money from mining on your server.
Info Scrapping: Hackers want access to usernames, passwords, emails and other sensitive info like credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc. This info can be sold on the dark web and used for illicit transactions as well as to hack into your other web accounts, like Facebook or Amazon. eCommerce sites are especially targeted for this sort of data, putting all your customers at risk.
Drones: Related to cyber warfare, it takes an army of computers to attack another computer. So how to recruit all these computers that act as "soldiers"? Hack them! By infiltrating the server that runs your website OR by gaining control of your personal computer via a compromised website that you visit, hackers assemble an army of "drone" computers that can be used to attack their targets at will.
In protecting our clients' websites, we can clearly see that NO site is immune – attacks are constantly attempted on all of them. If your site is unprotected, it can be hacked, significantly slowing it down, or even worse, be completely overtaken by a hacker.
If your site is not protected, please Contact Us so we can provide a free consultation on how to best protect it right away!