Interview: Fighting Malware with Anirban Banerjee
2012 continues to be a year of great excitement for 123-reg. We are thrilled to announce the release of Site Scanner, powered by Stop the Hacker. For those not in the know, Site Scanner is a SaaS based malware monitoring tool that scrutinises a user’s website, notifying the customer when malicious code/viruses are found via email and in the 123-reg control panel. Furthermore, the software provides the user information on where the damaging code is located (the line of code it starts and ends on) and provides steps on how to eradicate it. Protecting your online business against malicious code couldn’t be more important in 2012. This year has seen the issue of internet security rise to the front pages of the national newspapers. Whilst events such as the Linkedin security breach are unfortunate, they are helpful in educating the market. 123-reg spoke to Anirban Banerjee, Co-Founder of StopTheHacker Inc., in a bid to help inform website owners of the growing threat of malware and detail how purchasing Site Scanner can give you peace of mind. A blacklisted website can have serious implications for any online business in terms of lost revenue, potential customers and credibility. We asked Banerjee about the threats to 123-reg customers who run websites with little or no malware detection service. ‘Malicious hackers are targeting websites in order to compromise them. If your website gets compromised and is misused to distribute malware to innocent visitors, the infected website is put on a blacklist by Google and other search engines.’ The potentially spiralling affects could be disastrous for your online business as Banerjee explains. ‘If your website is blacklisted, users will be blocked from coming to your website. This could lead to a loss of revenue. Moreover, this could result in an irreparable loss to the reputation of your website and business.’ The threat of being blacklisted by Google is one that is not only very real but one that every website owner needs to protect against. Once malware infects a website, it harms both the company and its customers. Website owners typically have no idea they have been infected, and many do believe that anti-virus protection software is enough. However, it is not. ‘9,500 websites get added to the Google blacklist every single day. Given the UK market is quite big; this represents a substantial number of UK businesses. It takes 7-10 days for a blacklisted website to clean up its act, on average, this process can cost thousands of pounds in lost revenue before even considering the potential revenue lost from your brands’ reputation being tarnished.’ Prevention is better than cure, but having said that, Site Scanner also acts as a quick reaction, something users can take heart from. If malicious code is found on the user’s website at any time, they are sent an email detailing exactly where the code is, and just as importantly, how to delete it. ‘Site Scanner incorporates the best of breed technology when it comes to malware detection, Antivirus engines, signature databases and reputation monitoring. It will help 123-reg customers by providing them with peace of mind. Together, we will help fight the battle for them!’ Central to seeking a partnership, 123-reg looked-for a provider with a real passion for the online security industry. What 123-reg customers should also take from the partnership is Banerjee’s passion for helping people secure their websites as well as the quality of product that his company provides. ‘Our goal is to make website security ubiquitous. Having a secure website and not worrying about hackers installing malware on your site and getting blacklisted shouldn’t be a luxury, everyone should have access to a high quality, reliable and accurate malware detection prevention like Site Scanner.’ Releasing a product like Site Scanner highlights 123-reg’s commitment to helping its customers secure their websites. 123-reg is working with everyone involved with Site Scanner to bring website security to millions of users. Remember, you don’t have to be a high traffic website to be targeted. Even if you see yourself as a small site, you are attractive to hackers because your site will have more vulnerable openings for hackers.
Could a hacker really kill your website … and your business?
When you’re dealing with the day-to-day issues of running a website (not to mention running a business), worrying about security can come way down your list of priorities. And that’s understandable: if your website’s never been hacked or attacked, it’s hard to grasp quite how much damage it can cause. After all, why would hackers target your site at all with so many higher-profile targets out there? Big brands like Lush and Adidas, media outlets like The Sun and Gawker and some less salubrious sites have all come under attack in recent memory. Website hackers turn to smaller targets However, online criminals are increasingly turning towards smaller businesses. With fewer resources to dedicate to online security, they’re easy targets, as the Wall Street Journal article has explained: Hacking at small businesses “is a prolific problem,” says Dean Kinsman, a special agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s cyber division, which has more than 400 active investigations into these crimes. “It’s going to get much worse before it gets better.” And don’t let yourself be lulled into a false sense of security because that article focuses on US websites. Website hackers don’t have to respect national borders. They can go wherever the easiest targets are. Some hackers do it for fun or to cause disruption. Others do it just to prove they can. But nowadays, many have more sinister motives. Quite simply, there’s serious money to be made in website hacking. From stealing credit card details to committing business identity theft to harvesting names and addresses to sell to spammers, all too often hacking is motivated by hard profit. The damage website hackers can cause If you’re still not convinced that protecting your website should be higher up your list of priorities, it’s worth taking a minute to understand the sort of consequences you could face if a website hacker gained unauthorised access to some or all of your website files: Lost business is the most obvious and immediate problem. If your online shopping site gets compromised you might have to suspend trading or close the site altogether. But simply having to divert resources into securing a hacked website will take you away from other tasks. Your reputation can take a beating if word gets out that your site has been hacked. It takes a long time to rebuild trust with existing and potential customers and suppliers. Sure, its hard to quantify that damage, but it can be very significant. You could lose vital data too. If you don’t regularly backup your customer list, a hacker could destroy it in a few seconds. That would mean losing the details of hundreds or maybe thousands of happy customers who’d buy from you again if only you got in touch. Search engines might penalise your website. Search engines like Google actively blacklist hacked websites to avoid them causing harm to internet users. But it can take a while to get a blacklisting lifted – research has found found the average length of a blacklisting is 13 days – meaning you’re in real trouble if you rely on search engines for traffic. Fixing things is a total headache. Trust us on this one. It takes real time and effort to put right a hacked site – often the only safe thing to do is to delete everything and start again. It takes time and – if you need to bring in an external supplier – costs money. If it’s not quite registered with you yet, suffering from a website hacking attack can cause significant disruption. If you’re relying on your website to maintain your business cash flow, a serious incident can cripple or even destroy your business. If you’re not already thinking about website security, it’s about time you did: There’s great website security advice available from Get Safe Online Mashable has some excellent information about how to cope if you get hacked Ten ways to beef up your website security