Have I Been Hacked?
As you may already know the internet is full of criminals and scammers. Websites today are under constant attack by malicious bots. Not all bots are bad but some are looking for openings and weaknesses in a website’s security.
Most of these bots are malware that has infected users computers or even other websites. Most of these users do not know they are infected and the same goes for the website owner.
These are called Zombie bots and they can be used by the hackers to take over the use of the computer or website. They may be running quietly in the background doing things like mining crypto currency, sending spam, or be the place holder for the malware to infect another computer.
The background work can cause your website to run slow and lower your rankings. Those links you see in Phishing emails that you should know not to click on, well that could be your website. You could be delivering a malicious payload to unsuspecting users or be sending the Phishing emails and not even know it. That is until your site gets blacklisted.
Most Hosting Companies Leave It Up To You To Protect Your Website
You can protect your website with plugins like Wordfence and WP engine. You will also need real time scanners to check for malware that may have slipped through. However another layer of security would be required for DDOS attacks (Distributed Denial of Service).
This is when a botnet (a network of bots) from the internet simultaneously sends regular requests to your website. This can overwhelm your website unless you have purchased enough bandwidth and CPU from your hosting provider.
One drawback to having only protection through plugins on your website is that it puts more load on website resources and can impact performance.
Companies like Cloudflare or Securi can help with offloading the security of your website as a front end as well as provide caching to take even more load off your website.
VDigital Managed Hosting
VDigital hosting provides a full service approach. With multiple layers of protection, scanner and warning systems in place and the ability to quickly clean up any security issues that may arise. With perimeter protection most of the attacks stop before reaching the website thus preventing excess load on that site. Please contact us if you have been hacked for a free assessment.