Catapult Tech Solutions Blog

Website Security and Malicious Attacks
When you think about network and website security and your business, you might think ransomware, phishing, and hacking with the purpose to be retrieving financial or proprietary information from your network computer system. While that is V-E-R-Y important, and you want to protect that kind of information, there are other ways your website could be attacked, such as:
- Data skimming
- Web injection
- Ad Injection
- Content Injection
- Session Redirect
- Form Field Manipulation
How these website security attacks hurt your business
These types of attacks are used to undermine your website – and your communication or interactions with customers or potential customers. If a user cannot get a registration form to work or gets redirected to another site, they are probably gone for good. Plus, if there are offensive ads or content added to your site, potential clients might be a) offended, b) concerned about legitimacy of your site, and c) annoyed with a site that is not user-friendly and click off to a competitor. While these types of attacks don’t necessarily affect immediate financial or proprietary data, they do have a negative impact on your bottom line. They turn customers away before you ever get a chance to make a sale. In that respect it is impossible to gauge the damage done to your business.
Where are the vulnerabilities in website security?
In the 2019 State of the Web Report by Info-security.magazine.com, some surprising data is revealed:
“The average website in the Alexa 1,000 is reliant on 31 third-parties. A significant percentage of websites, 20%, integrate 50 or more third-parties.”
While it is impractical to think your website can operate successfully without third-party services, vulnerability is increased with every third-party service connected to your site. In addition, some of those third-party services may relate to other services down the line to a 5th or 6th level, which increases the vulnerability even more. Like others, you probably feel like you are caught in between a rock and a hard place. You need these services, but you can’t control the vulnerabilities their bring to challenge your website security.
What can you do to reduce your website’s vulnerability?
While it is impossible to prevent every problem on a website, there are some proactive steps you can take. Here are three that cover the broadest range of problems:
- To begin with, work with professionals who know the industry when you are designing and developing a website. They use professional, reliable, and responsible third-party services, with a track record of maintaining security. Is it 100% fail-proof? No, of course not, nothing ever is, especially as technology continues to expand. But even on that note, if there is a breach that affects your site, you will be informed.
- Update the website content on a regular basis so that someone has eyes on every page on a routine basis. Sometimes links or forms get broken and you don’t know about it until a customer calls to complain. By that time, who knows how much business you have lost.
- Retain knowledgeable IT management services, like Catapult Tech Solutions, to monitor the security of your website and network. They put security measures in place that are on the job 24/7, not just when the office is open. In addition, they know immediately of a security breach and are able to address it in all affected areas of the network. In other words, they map your network and don’t lose any time tracking down a problem while figuring out how the network is ordered.
Don’t let website security – or lack thereof – keep you up all night
You know your business. Of course, you know you need a website presence. You know you need technology to run operations. But YOU DO NOT have to know the details of how to protect your technology. Nope, that is our job. At Catapult Tech Solutions we mind the details behind your network so if there is a problem, there is someone waiting in the wings to get you rolling again. I guess you could say we are a safety net for your network. Cal us at (317) 350-8928. Let’s work together to ensure technology worries aren’t keeping you up at night.