With websites comes responsibility. With e-commerce websites comes great responsibility.
The impact of the hacked Magento website on the eCommerce store is always negative.
That’s why ServerGuy is always so obsessed when it comes to speed and security.
How hacked Magento website affect eCommerce business?
The hacked websites could harm the business in many ways.
Few of them are:
- Loss of revenue on an immediate basis
- Credibility loss in the long run
- SEO Penalty by Google
- Hidden backdoors planted
- Running a DDoS Attacks
- Domain Blacklisted
- Illegal activities and Huge Penalty fee
- AWS Fee
#1 Loss of revenue on an immediate basis
The users who encounter a security warning or malware on the website will never place an order.
NEVER!
Imagine yourself as an online shopper who goes on a site to buy clothes and finds a malware warning message on the site.
The browser has become smarter lately, and they show warning for unsecured websites or hacked websites. That red lock on the URL drastically reduces the conversion rate.
#2 Credibility loss in the long run
A user that visited your Magento website during the time it was hacked or infected with malware will always have that thing on the back of his/her mind.
This results in credibility loss in the long run and thus reduces any future business from the same user.
The first impression is important, and if it is not good, it could cause a lot of problems for you.
#3 SEO Penalty by Google
What if I told you that you could lose all the hard work you have put in to gain that SEO ranking in minutes?
What if I told you that after a blacklist it could take you months to regain your position on these SERPs?
What if I told you that a Google Blacklist has the potential to kill almost 90%, if not more, of the organic traffic to your website?
Yes, all of this is TRUE!
Google wants to protect its user, and they actively remove the hacked website from their search results.
#4 Hidden backdoors planted
We have observed that hackers do not leave the website easily. It takes time and effort to hack a website.
They create multiple backdoors to the website and hide them.
Security experts can find them, but as a Magento store owners, you would not know them.
So, if once hacked, there is always a chance of getting hacked again.
#5 Running a DDoS Attacks
Hackers can use your hacked website to run a DDoS attack.
DDoS Attacks lots of resources, so hackers hack multiple apps and sites to direct their resources to their target.
In a way, your site has been used to do something wrong.
#6 Domain Blacklisted
Google is not the only organization that could blacklist you.
If someone else is using your website to do illegal and unethical activities, other organizations would blacklist your website to protect themself.
Email marketing software, hosting providers, CDN providers are few examples.
#7 Illegal activities and Huge Penalty fee
According to PCI compliance law, if you are running an eCommerce store, you are responsible for the data of your customer.
The credit card information, address, pins, contact number, and financial records. You have to secure everything.
If you are found guilty of not taking proper care of the eCommerce store, then you will be charged a hefty penalty fee.
#8 AWS fee
Many Magento store owners use scalable architecture to run their websites.
It means, if the store needs more resources due to more traffic, the service can charge their card and increase the resources without asking.
It happens for bandwidth, data storage, RAM consumption, etc…
So, hackers can exploit the website resources for their personal projects. Or anything else.
And you will have to pay.
Case Studies
eCommerce businesses approach ServerGuy with such security issues on a daily basis.
A few examples are given below to give you an idea of the things without disclosing the exact store name for privacy reasons.
- We were approached by this large women clothing brand when their website started showing ‘This website may be hacked’ in Google search results. It was a known Magento security loophole that we fixed in under 12 hours. And going forward, we helped them save their monthly recurring Magento hosting bill by more than $750/mo! Too good to believe? Yes, we know!
- Another client had a credit card hijack vulnerability by which the hacker added an extra section on checkout page where he could capture all the details of the credit cards entered by the users. This took us a little less than 6 hours to get rid of! Later, we gave them a completely new and better architecture that made their Magento store more stable, fast and secure from these loopholes.
ServerGuy has a team of website security experts. If you are encountering such a problem, do contact us.
Final Words
Though hacked websites could be cleaned, we always suggest precaution.
Always follow the best practices to keep the eCommerce store.
Most important: Use web hosting that supports you if something bad happens.
You may not be able to clean the website yourself, it is a difficult task.
Got any questions? Leave them in the comment box. 🙂
