Here are several Case Studies where best practices for preventing cybersecurity breaches prove that a secure website is clear and critical to data breach prevention, business continuity, protection from financial fraud and legal penalties.
For 4 years, our clients have enjoyed new levels of security and peace of mind with our proactive website security plan by putting our security plan and risk management recommendations into action.
Companies all over the world are using Hit-the-Web Marketing to better secure their websites. Hear from companies like yours about what’s made them successful. The peace of mind and freedom to focus on your core business goals instead of dealing with security headaches.
I’ll say this now and at the end of this discussion.
Website Security is more than a security plugin and a strong password.
It’s a Process. Early Detection. Prevention. Protection. Performance. Monitor. Response.
It’s continuous Risk Management.
What type of Security Problems Can Occur with our websites?
A DDOS attack is when a hacker bombards a website with traffic. It usually makes it painfully slow for other visitors or inaccessible altogether. Credential stuffing known common with eCommerce sites. We discuss this more at the end of this post. Brute force logins that attempt to figure out your admin name and password to login to the backend of your website. SQL injections wreak many types of havok.
What types of Solutions Do You Need to Counter Cyber Attacks on your website?
Continuous Risk Mitigation Plan. WAF, a Web App Firewall, Multifactor Authentication, CDN, Strong passwords, remove old logins of employees who have left or no longer need access.
Intelligence from your Market to identify distinct cyber threats
For 3 years our clients have enjoyed new levels of success by putting our data breaches and security breach research results and recommendations into action.
CASE STUDY 1 Custom Home Builder
A client, a major custom home builder services firm, had to have their website rebuilt due to cybersecurity breach at their hosting company. Their hosting company notified our home builder that their website was hacked and infected with a virus. To make matters worse the entire website was removed from the server to ensure the security of the other businesses sharing this server. There was nothing to resurrect. All assets to the website were lost.
Hit-the-Web Marketing is hired again to rebuild the builder’s website. This time we implement a proactive plan, starting with a Web application firewall, tightened up access permissions on the folders and files on the server inside and outside of WordPress, set up an automated backup procedure, and continuously monitor and implement software updates.
RESULTS a risk-free website for over 5 years. A plan that has deflected thousands of login attempts, SQL injections, and more. All of which affects not only security but SEO and the performance of the website. Zero business disruption.
CASE STUDY 2 Commercial Sign Advertising
After getting hit twice in two years with a security breach, this SMB in the sign business employs us to remove a virus attack on their website. The hackers set up a code injection that was redirecting their website to a viagra site. They came to realize Small businesses are a huge target of cyber hackers. Their website was unaccessible to potential clients means they lost business. They rely on their website to showcase their advertising know-how and creativity to their potential clients. How much is unknown. Our website security plan gives them the coverage they need to ensure continuous, stable, risk-free business online. We assessed the situation, found the files hiding on the server, removed them so the redirect was eliminated. We set up a Web Application Firewall,
Over the years this successful company has online assets and real estate that has grown as their content has grown. When your website is not available you have to rely on other platforms such as social media for your business. The work of social media to drive traffic to your website. When your website becomes unavailable, your business is disrupted. This has a direct impact on your bottom line. While you are scrambling to reconstruct your website, your prospect has gone on to the competition. They still expect an immediate response, regardless of the issues you are currently facing.
RESULTS restored hacked website twice. Now continuous risk management plan is in place.
CASE STUDY 3 Flow Meter
A client in the industrial sector of flow meters notices several instances of links on their website that were mysteriously redirected to a website that has nothing to do with the companies they represent. This SMB realizes they had a security issue and called us.
We were tasked with removing the virus.
The action we assessed the situation, removed the virus, and Implemented our website security plan that secures every area of their website from invasion and takeover.
RESULT is a continuous risk-fee website for both their visitors, customers, and their business.
CASE STUDY 4 Building Equipment Supplier
A client in the building equipment supply business has three websites that were getting redirected to websites selling Viagra. The hackers also removed much of the website’s functionality and design to the point that the site was unrecognizable.
We were tasked with restoring their websites.
We jumped into action first assessing the damage, what type of breach occurred. Then came up with a plan to correct the situation.
We set into action removing the files causing the redirection, secured the files and folders where the site is hosted by raising the permission requirements, implemented a firewall, and implemented additional risk management processes such as automating backups with frequency in accordance with the amount of activity to their website, and backups in multiple locations. We instilled strong logins and passwords and removed those previous employees, contractors, or admins that were no longer necessary or appeared suspicious.
RESULTS are the recovery of three website investments. Within 8 hours, we successfully removed the malicious files, restoring the websites, and put ongoing safeguards in place to ensure no further invasions occur.
CASE STUDY 5 Construction Industry
A client, in the building construction industry, a proactive manager of his business, realized quickly investing in our website security plan was valuable with a direct impact on his bottom line.
RESULT over 3000 deflections of forced login access to their website, high website performance, and SEO.
CASE STUDY 6 Digital Marketing Agency
A top digital marketing agency was hacked. The signs were subtle. The website was still standing but few people could access it. It had been flagged, blacklisted actually, as having malware. The started with issues sending out an email campaign. Testers opening the email were receiving warnings of a “possible infected website” and “do not continue”. We were tasked with finding out what type of attack was inflicted, removing the malware, and reestablishing trust from google and other search engines. Reports that we ran showed that the site was blacklisted, that all the pages were indexed with Chinese characters in the title and description. LinkedIn showed links to their website contain malware. Facebook and Twitter would not allow links to the website.
We set into action removing the files at the hosting level, secure files and folders and submit to google that the site was clean. The process took about 2 weeks to clean up and reestablish good standing with the search engines. This is what set this company to create a Website Security Plan. Read our story here.
Our mission is to fight cybercrime one website at a time.
One Way to Reduce Risk of Your Website Security
The one way to ensure your website security is to host your website internally. The risk increases when hosting with external hosting companies. One reason is that other company’s websites are hosting on the same server as yours. If one is infected, others are at high risk of attack as well. If you do host externally you can purchase private hosting areas on external hosting companies. The price is higher but this option reduces risk. There are some disadvantages to personal hosting. If you or your staff are unfamiliar with the hardware and software required for hosting this can turn into a liability.
Why It’s Important to Act Now
Website and online stores suffer from cyber attacks every day, and in this case study, we’ve covered some of the most used methods by cybercriminals. By strengthening your site’s security based on cyber-attack trends, you can reduce your chances of being targeted and suffering a successful breach.
You don’t have to be a cybersecurity expert to increase your site’s security either. Creating stronger passwords, using a multi-factor authenticator, keeping your codebase sanitized, using a load balancer and a CDN, and utilizing firewalls are some of the most straightforward steps towards keeping your site secure.
Start by taking inventory of your current security measures and identifying potential areas that might create a risk. You can then systematically eliminate those risks based on the most common threats and continue bolstering your defenses against even the more sophisticated attacks.
Staying up to date on what’s happening in the cybersecurity world is an ongoing challenge for both companies and crime fighters alike. There are malware attacks, ransomware, viruses, DDOS attacks (bombard your website with traffic making it unavailable or painfully slow), Brute force login attempts, SQL injections.
eCommerce websites have security threats that are getting stronger by the day. You may have heard of some they are experiencing. Financial fraud with credential stuffing, credit card fraud, and fake return and refund fraud. Other types, not any less damaging are spamming, phishing, bad bots, DOS and DDoS attacks. Many e-commerce websites have incurred losses due to disruptions in their website and overall sales because of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. Hackers take advantage of known vulnerabilities with SQL injections ( attacks your submission forms) and Cross-site scripting (XSS). Once you install a firewall you can visually see the number of brute force attacks on your admin panel in attempts to crack your password. E-skimming involves infecting a website’s checkout pages with malicious software. The intention is to steal the clients’ personal and payment details. Man in The Middle (MITM) When a hacker listens in on the communication taking place between your e-commerce store and a user. Walgreen’s experienced this when a customer placed an order over a vulnerable Wi-Fi.
The industry experiences up to 32.4% of all successful threats annually.
Cyber attacks are only getting more prevalent. In fact, cyber-attacks rose 400% during COVID of 2020. We are committed to making the connected world a safer place.
Website Security is more than a security plugin and a strong password.
It’s a Process. Early Detection. Prevention. Protection. Performance. Monitoring. Response.
It’s continuous Risk Management.
We are easier to do business with *No Contract. No Initiation Fee. No Termination Fee.*
No Meter Running
We are not going to charge you for every question and issue. No meter running. No need to make an investment decision on a daily or case-by-case basis.
Our customer service is better than other providers. You have a human to talk to. Learn more here about our plan. We’ve thought of every angle possible.
Other Website Security Posts And Resources on My Site That May Be Useful To You
The Top 14 Myths About Website Security
Our Story What Inspired Us to Create Website Security Maintenance Plan
How To Backup Your WordPress Website – It Has Everything To Do With Recovering Your Website Quickly
Carol is the founder of Hit-the-Web Marketing since 2009. She's been building websites and marketing campaigns from scratch into something scalable and successful for over 20 years.
We build websites around lead generating strategies. Then, we go to work driving traffic to your website, converting visitors into customers, and nurturing and retaining your customers. Our main service is Google Ads. Because 92.07% of people searching on the web use Google as their search engine of choice.