Your Firm’s Website May Give Your Visitors Malware, Protect It!

This week we had a call from a client who was trying to send one of their clients a link to their firm’s website. The problem was that every time they got to their firm’s website, it was block by our firewall. They tried a few times and after being constantly blocked they gave us a call. We then checked on this issue and found that the website was being blocked by our firewall because the website was hosting Malware. Malware is short for malicious software, and it’s programmed by hackers who disrupt computer operations, gather sensitive information, or gain access to private computer systems, namely your firm’s network. After doing some research we found that this particular Malware was on the serious side. We contacted their web hosting people and after a few hours they were able to take care of it.

If your site is infected, it is generally because some vulnerability has allowed a hacker to take control of your site. The hacker may change the content of the site, and add spam or add additional pages to the site, usually with the intent of phishing (tricking users into parting with personal and credit card information). Alternatively, they may inject malicious code (malware) that pull content from another website that tries to attack any computer that views the page. The big issue here is vulnerability. If this happens to your site, your web people have some explaining to do, but this can also be your fault. If you have WordPress or remote access to your websites back-end, make sure your passwords are strong and complex, at least 7 characters with a capital letter, lowercase letter, a number and a symbol. These are the hardest passwords to crack. If you passwords are strong and you still get hacked, take a look at your host. Is you web guy hosting your site on his “server” or is it being hosted in a secure location with a more popular hosting company like Godaddy or Bluehost.

Make sure your with a solid hosting company and that your passwords are strong, these 2 factors will drastically lower the possibility of being hacked. You don’t want a potential client to Google your firm and find monkeys dancing instead of attorney bio information. This actually happened to one of our clients who was working with a sub-par web developer. Don’t be a web victim, protect your firm’s website and it’s internet reputation.