Learning how to avoid unnecessary financial risk is a key part of being a business owner. I’m going to help you understand where those risks are hiding in your website.
I’d like you to imagine for a moment that you’re a London taxi driver.
You own your own vehicle, which you’ve saved up for and purchased after doing The Knowledge. Now you’re all set for a healthy revenue stream of fares travelling all over the city.
If you’re smart, you’ve taken out public liability insurance and motor vehicle insurance. You’ve even thought of breakdown cover in case of emergency.
You wouldn’t dream of taking your taxi out on the road without making sure it’s insured. Let’s imagine what would happen if you didn’t.
- Someone takes a tumble inside the cab and there’s no public liability insurance. Big mistake, court case, financial compensation out of your own pocket.
- Someone could smash into your cab. Your lack of motor vehicle insurance will leave you wide open to footing the repair bill. Vehicle off the road, no fares, no income. Similar story if you break down.
The hidden risks in your website
You may not think there’s much to a website. A little code, some pictures, a bit of text. Why should that even pose a financial risk?
Nowadays content management systems (CMS) power the vast majority of business websites. Platforms such as WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal are the bedrock of modern business websites.
It’s a lot harder to know what might happen when you’re dealing with a piece of software, though. Anyone who’s had a Microsoft Word macro virus can vouch for that. All you need is one and your entire computer hard drive can become ruined by it. The dangers are so real that you rely on your anti-virus and firewall to protect you.
Your website needs the same attention. In fact more so, as it sits on the Internet, open to attack from all quarters.
The primary threats your website faces are due to:
- server software vulnerabilities
- website software vulnerabilities
- sustained attacks
Server software
I’m not going to bore you with all the technical detail. Instead I’ll make it simple.
Your computer runs operating system software such as Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X.
This software needs regular updates. Microsoft and Apple take care of that and all your computer does is to check for the updates and apply them. (That’s what’s supposed to happen, at least, if it’s configured correctly.)
The web server also runs system software, which requires regular updates. These updates provide patches for vulnerabilities, as well as new features. This is no different from Windows and OS X.
It’s up to your web host to ensure the software is regularly updated. Any web host worth paying for will make sure that the server software is maintained properly. If yours isn’t doing so, it exposes your website to attack through vulnerabilities. There’s nothing you can do about it if it happens other than pay for a new website if the old one’s broken.
Rule 1: find a good web host.
Website software
As I’ve already mentioned, your website is running on a CMS. It requires regular maintenance to ensure it’s hacker-proof and secured from attack.
Unfortunately, far too many businesses fail to apply software updates to their websites. Hackers take down or deface tens of thousands of websites each time an exploit is discovered.
It’s a complex process to manage your website software, though. Trying it yourself without an adequate backup strategy exposes you to further risk. If an update fails or breaks your site, it makes reverting back much harder.
So hand-in-hand with keeping your website software updated goes a backup plan. Fail to plan, plan to fail – and that could end up being a very expensive mistake.
Rule 2: make sure you backup and update your site regularly.
Attack threats
The biggest threat of all is something you cannot mitigate through software updates. Sustained external attacks are especially difficult to deal with.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are the very worst kind. Many computers on the Internet launch simultaneous bombardment of data to your site. The connection becomes saturated, the server cannot cope with the load. Net result: the site or even the entire server goes down.
The solution to this problem is firewall software equipped with intrusion detection. This blocks traffic based on known attack patterns, protecting the site. This keeps it available and open for business. Lose your site due to a DDoS attack and it could be down for days with all sorts of financial ramifications.
If a hacker is able to place malware on your site, that can be equally bad. It will infect all visitors and distribute the virus further, but possibly the worst is still waiting. Google will penalise your site for a long time if it detects malware and blacklists it. The damage to your search engine rankings is immeasurable and can take years to recover from.
Rule 3: secure your site with a firewall.
I have a business to run! How do I deal with this?
This is actually far more straightforward than you might think. For every problem there is a solution.
We have a simple strategy to counter all these threats and make the process easy. We offer three different tiers of website Care Plan. Each is designed to serve different types of business.
If your business is small and relies on its website, it’s a no-brainer. For less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day, you can ensure your site is fully protected.
We built the Care Plans for small and medium businesses. who need peace of mind for their WordPress website.
Each Care Plan includes backups (to multiple destinations for extra resilience) and security. We monitor and update the software regularly.
We also include varying amounts of support time, just as with inclusive airtime minutes on a mobile phone contract. This enables business owners to send us content updates and focus on their business. All time spent is tracked and reported in a client dashboard.
For those wishing to grow their business, there are optional consulting calls. These help with planning, execution, reporting, review and accountability.
Why not take the next step, look over the Care Plans and see which is right for your WordPress website?
Edward Solomon has over 30 years’ experience in project management, technical education, computer networking, web design and development and is a Digital Business Consultant for PENNInk Productions Ltd.
