One of the worst pieces of news someone can give you about your website is that it’s not working properly. A small sigh accompanied by a “what’s going on now?” can be the start of something that gets fixed quickly or the start of a longer road depending on the precautions you take with your site to protect your business from online threats, such as hackers who can undo months of work by introducing programs that can affect the site’s performance or compromising the security of your customers through security flaws in your server.
What is malware?
The term malware comes from two words: malicious software , which describes any type of philippines business email list program developed with the intention of affecting another user.
Initially, malware was created to test the weaknesses of a program's code and, in the process, annoy other users by slowing down their computers or causing countless windows to open at the same time; but over time, the vast majority of these attacks have become more sophisticated and diversified into a huge variety of formats such as viruses, worms, Trojans, DDoS, Phishing or XSS, to name a few.
Now, these attacks are usually aimed at stealing sensitive information to obtain some extra benefit, in most cases monetary, or to cause some harm to you or companies.
For a clear example of this, we have the recent case where malware put several people and companies worldwide in check by blocking the information on their computers and asking for a large amount of money to generate a code to decrypt that information, which resulted in huge losses for anyone who decided to pay to have their computer unlocked.
Protect your business with a malware detector
Hackers can use a variety of ways to insert malware into your site without being noticed. While there are free tools like Google's Transparency Report or Search Console itself to scan your site and make sure it's safe, it's best to have a malware detector that will help you do this scan before Google sends out an alert.
Most of the tools you can hire will scan your site for malware on a daily basis, and if they notice anything unusual, you will be notified immediately by the support team so they can work to get your site back to its optimal state.
One important detail you get when using a malware detector for your business is a little badge or image you can place on your site indicating that it is protected, which can give your customers peace of mind that they are browsing safely.
What to do if my site has been hacked?
The most important thing is not to panic! Then, take the time to read this link from Google , which explains in detail what happens to your site when it is compromised by some kind of hack and its general recommendations for dealing with the problem.
Typically, if you suffer an attack, your site will be placed on a blacklist where Google penalizes web pages by removing them from organic results and issuing constant alerts to visitors to try to prevent as few people as possible from being affected.
Malware detector for your peace of mind
If you do not have any type of protection, we suggest you contact any professional or your site's hosting team as soon as possible so they can help you resolve the problem. This will obviously have a high cost because it is an exceptional case and an emergency as such, but instead of looking at what you are losing financially, concentrate your energies on trying to provide a quick solution and notify your users about the problem.
Send an email or communicate through your social networks that you are working to solve the problem, since sooner or later, they will find out through word of mouth that spreads so frequently on social networks or by visiting your site and, perhaps, their reaction will not be so positive.
Once the problem is resolved thanks to the joint work you do with the technical team, it is time to notify Google so that they can proceed to perform a validation of the removal of the malware that was installed on your site; they will check that it is really no longer there, then they will proceed to remove you from the blacklist so that everything returns, little by little, to normal.
Being a victim of such an attack is something that no one would like to experience; however, it is a reality that we live in this digital age where information is more sensitive and important than ever.
Also remember to have other types of web security solutions such as a Firewall (WAF), an SSL certificate and a backup of your site , in case any setback should arise, to be prepared and make a critical emergency a more controllable situation.
