Websites are vulnerable in this virtual universe. They are prone to various threats and attacks from unknown and creepy sources, primarily from hackers.
It doesn’t matter whether your website is new or old; there will always remain a chance of it experiencing a cyber breach.
A Cyber breach is when sensitive and confidential computer data is accessed by unauthorized personnel through artificial intelligence, coding, phishing, etc.
Mostly, a cyber breach is a human act where a coder or hacker bypasses cyber security to sneak into confidential files and rob them away.
If you’re in doubt, learn about these eight signs to confirm whether your website is experiencing a cyber breach or not.
8 Telltale Signs Your Website Is Under Cyber Breach Threat
Getting your website equipped with the necessary measures can save you from ultimate losses like disabled websites, reduced traffic, loss of online profits, etc. One of the first steps you can take to secure your website is to have a cybersecurity PDF checklist.
A PDF cybersecurity checklist helps you identify, plan, and respond to a possible hack in your cyber system in terms of hardware, software, and data backup.
But how will you know if your website, cloud storage, or virtual files are under cyber threat?
Well, many of the cyber breach signs are so common nowadays that even a non-technical person can identify them in the first place.
Messages from Google in this regard may include red screens, malware warning messages, error messages, and many more. So, let’s find out eight signs of a cyber breach to give you a broader picture:
- Malware Warning Message
Have you ever received a warning message lately that tells you that your website contains malware? It’s a standard security assessment practice Google has set to ensure user safety. Any website that runs dubious content or is infected with a malicious virus will receive this message.
Not only that, a warning message will show up on the search results to warn the user, saying, “This site may harm your computer.” So, your website has not only become vulnerable to infectious programs, but it’s going to ward off your regular and prospective audiences.
Hence, don’t ignore this malware warning message for a long time, or else you might lose vital information already stored on your site.
- Red Death Screen
One of the most common red flags you can get on your website from Google is a red screen with the title Report Attack Page!
Note this; it’s one of the most unmistakable signs that your website’s security has been compromised, meaning hacked.
They don’t call it the ‘red screen of death’ for any reason. Thousands of websites become victims of malware attacks and receive red screen messages, which is why understanding the importance of cybersecurity is so essential.
The messages in the red screens may vary depending on operating systems and browsers. They may look like the following:
- Suspected phishing site
- Reported attack page
- The website ahead contains malware
- Suspected malware site
- The site may be hacked
- Your Website Is Offline or Disabled
It’s not that only Google may deal with your website’s abnormality all the time; your site’s hosting company can take proper measures too to safeguard the visitors of your website.
For instance, if your site contains some malware or runs any suspicious content, etc., it may be reported by the visitors to the hosting company. As a result, the host will ensure that your website is no longer live.
Getting offline or disabled not only saves the users of your website, but it prevents any valuable information from being destroyed or lost. And here’s the thing to seriously consider.
Most hosting companies have the policy of instantly formatting your site’s hosting account or server to secure your customers’ data and server. It’s because sometimes an offline site may also transmit malicious viruses to their computer system.
So, if you don’t keep a backup of your website’s data time and time, it may lose all its information due to a formatting process.
- A Ghost Admin in CMS
One of the obvious signs of your website getting hacked is finding admin users or database users in CMS (Content Management System) that you’ve never created. It’s a very effective way hackers usually use to access your website and its server.
Hackers carefully select websites and hack into various admin, database, and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) user accounts to use them as backdoors to sneak in and steal information.
- Random Pop-ups and Ads on Pages
If your website pages are invaded by random pop-up content (games, songs, etc.) and ads that you never signed up for or paid for, you can be assured of a possible hack taking place on your website.
Website visitors and users are more likely to face this situation which interrupts their surfing and scrolling through the pages. Hence, the user experience declines in quality as the visitors have to spend more time closing the ads and pop-ups than reading the content on your site pages.
Typically, hackers set these ads into your website, which earns them money, depending on the number of impressions they get every time a user enters your website.
In the worst scenario, your site may get injected with a virus if any curious and inexperienced user clicks on one of those ads.
- Customers May Contact You
If you’re running an e-commerce site where hundreds of thousands of customers are purchasing products or services daily, the question of cyber security becomes an obligation for you.
And one of the telling signs of your website experiencing a cyber breach is that certain customers are trying to reach out to you through website email, phone number, or an inquiry form.
While it might discredit your service quality, it’s also good news that your customers are still letting you know of their problems. This gives you an opportunity to resolve the issue to retain their trust.
Be grateful that you’ve learned about a possible malware attack on your website through one of your customers, which you might not have been able to find out otherwise.
- Slower Loading of Site and Its Pages
If your website is loading or running very slowly, know this, malware is eating up the time by creeping into your server while messing with its resources.
There might be other reasons, like bandwidth throttling, network congestion, data discrimination, etc., but in any case, you should get your website scanned to detect the exact problem.
Slower pages of a website are a bad experience for the users. Your regular or new visitors might be automatically diverted to other websites (your competitors) because of a sluggish website.
- Your Emails Are Spam
Have your email newsletter responses declined suddenly? If it has, it’s unlikely that your subscribers have turned their faces from your content or product now. Instead, there’s a possibility that your emails are being filtered down to their Spam folders. The reason: cyber breach.
Hackers love to breach your website’s server security wall while sending spam emails to your subscribers. These emails may contain all types of useless and threatening content, including profanity, phishing codes, malware, etc.
Such content may even destroy your customers’ PC and cloud data, making them face loss of financial and sensitive information. Consequently, they might put your email on the blacklist.
Hence, regularly follow up on your online marketing activities to avoid such threats and losing subscribers.
5 Top Tips to Safeguard Your Cybersecurity
As you know the signs of data or cyber breaches, you may consider learning some tips to boost your business’s cybersecurity. Here, we’re sharing five top tips to keep your IT (information technology) security intact:
- Maintain Network Security: Maintain a firewall and encrypt information within your server and network. Protecting your WiFi network is best by hiding from the available network list. Also, don’t forget to keep your router password protected.
- Establish Multi-Factor Authentication: Setting a multi-factor authentication for accessing your website is a smart way to prevent any unauthorized access to your website and server. Use this method wisely by setting a strong password you can remember, followed by other required information.
- Keep Office Devices Protected: When giving away laptops to your employees for work purposes, ensure they’re protected with strong passwords. Don’t share admin roles with multiple personnel to prevent the unauthorized download of suspicious content to PCs, laptops, tablets, cell phones, etc.
- Ensure Protected Card Services: Make sure your credit or debit cards are EMV (Europay, MasterCard®, and Visa®) protected before making payments for business purposes.
- Antivirus and Data Backup: Don’t overlook the importance of installing good antiviruses in all your office devices to prevent any malware, spyware, etc., from entering the devices. Besides, keep backup for your business information from the servers regularly to minimize data loss as much as possible.
Key Takeaways
We hope you’ve realized by now how important it is to keep your website safe from cybersecurity breaches. If you’re dealing with online products or services that serve a vast range of customers, ensuring your server security becomes your biggest responsibility.
The eight signs of your website getting hacked that we’ve shared above will come in handy in maintaining your data security.
Thus your business will see stable profits while your customers will remain loyal and happy.
