Why would anyone want to hack my website?

As a small business owner, you might wonder, “Why would anyone want to hack my website?”. In my 20 years in the hosting business, I’ve often met clients who underestimate the risks of their website being hacked seriously. They usually think:

• “My website is small. If it gets hacked, no big deal – I’ll make a new one!”
• “Who would want to hack my site?”
• “Why would anyone waste time on my site?”

The reality, however, shows that these attitudes are wrong. You should not underestimate the security of any site, even the smallest ones.

Hacking attacks and their effects

If your site gets hacked, 99.99% of the time it’s not a targeted attack against you or your specific site. The days when hackers proved themselves by defacing websites with flaming skull GIFs are long gone.

Such hacks are usually used when compromising public, institutional, or government websites, as well as sites that support specific causes. In these cases, the goal is to change the site’s content in a way that many people will see.

One thing is true, though – no one will waste time targeting just your site. Usually, sites are compromised by automated scripts and bots that scan the web 24/7, looking for vulnerabilities in unprotected sites. Once they find such weaknesses, they inject malicious code to take control of the site and often the entire hosting account it’s on.

After a website is compromised, hackers can perform various malicious activities. These are DDoS attacks on other websites, uploading phishing content, spoofing, sending spam, launching scripts to hack other websites and IoT devices, infecting personal computers, and other harmful actions. In some cases, you might not even realize hackers have compromised your site. It continues to load and function normally, while malicious scripts run in the background. This can go on for months or even years, but by the time you notice, it’s usually too late.

What negative impacts can a compromised site lead to?

Let’s look at what can happen if your site gets hacked.

1. The hosting provider could block access to the website

Most hosting providers regularly scan or monitor the activity of servers and, when they detect malicious code, usually block access to the website until it is cleaned. This means your site could be inaccessible for an unknown period, requiring additional time and financial resources to clean it, if cleaning is even possible.

2. Search engines and browsers will block access to the site

If your hosting provider doesn’t restrict access, Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines will. Web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera will also block the hacked site. Instead of your site’s content, visitors will see a warning message. It will state that the site is potentially dangerous and involves several risks. Moreover, if your site had a good ranking in search results, a compromise will drastically lower its ranking. Restoring it can take months or even years.

3. Spam can be sent from your site

If hackers gain control of your site, they can use it to send spam. This activity can lead to long-term negative effects. Your site’s IP address and domain can end up on blocklist. Removing them from these lists requires significant time and resources and, in some cases, may even be impossible.

4. A phishing site can be added to your website

Uploading a phishing website to your hosting account can also have very serious consequences. For example, hackers might add a webpage to your site that perfectly imitates a major bank’s website to steal credit card information. Before anyone blocks the page, they can steal hundreds or thousands of users’ credit card data and drain funds from their accounts.

Having a phishing page on your site can lead to investigations by authorities, and figuring out the causes and consequences can cost you a lot of stress, time, and resources.

The registrar may also block your site’s domain. This situation is not uncommon. Unblocking it involves slow and cumbersome verification procedures.

5. Data from your site can be stolen

Data theft from your site can also lead to very serious consequences. If your site is, for example, an online store with data from thousands of registered customers, hackers can use this information for malicious purposes. They often use customer data to send spam emails, make phone calls, or send SMS messages to scam people. Hackers frequently sell large databases of customer data on the black market. Buyers, including competitors, can use this data to try to steal your customers in various ways.

6. Your ads can also be blocked

If you run ads on Google, Facebook, Instagram, or another popular search engine or social media platform, a compromised site almost always leads to immediate suspension of the ads. Sometimes, the platform may also block the account managing the ads. Re-verifying the account and resuming the ads, along with reconfiguring them, can be very time-consuming and stressful.

7. Total Hosting Account Breach: Emails and Data at Risk

If hackers gain access to your entire hosting account this will put at serious risk all your email correspondence. This isn’t just about losing emails—hackers can send fraudulent invoices, alter information in messages, impersonate your identity, and steal sensitive business and customer information. The damage extends to your social media accounts, business reputation, and even customer trust. In the wrong hands, unauthorized access to your emails can lead to identity theft, financial fraud, and a complete breach of your business integrity.

Final thoughts

Protecting your website is crucial, no matter its size. Hackers often target small and seemingly insignificant sites because they tend to have weaker security measures. The impacts of a hack can be far-reaching, affecting your reputation, finances, and customer trust. It’s essential to recognize if hackers have compromised your site and know what steps to take afterward. Check out our articles on How to know if your WordPress site has been hacked? and What to do after your website is hacked.

I know you now have the answer to the question why would anyone want to hack my website.

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