How Hackers Hurt Cheap Hosting Companies
If you run a web hosting company, there's something that you might not know: a few hacked sites can hurt your bottom line. But, wait, hacked sites aren't your fault, right? Even though web hosting company owners are responsible for hacked sites, a new study shows that site owners often blame hosts for hacks.
How Hackers Hurt Cheap Hosting Companies: The Commtouch Compromised Websites Survey
This past year, the Commtouch Compromised Websites Survey including the question: “do website owners blame or leave their hoster after their site has been compromised …?” The answer? Yes; but not for the reasons that you may think.
The problem, as it turns out, is that site owners don't directly blame hosts for hacks, but they do blame a host that doesn't help solve a hacking problem. Amazingly, the aforementioned survey found that only 14% of site owners gained help from hosting companies after an attack. 14%! That's a low number.
How Hackers Hurt Cheap Hosting Companies: Why the Lack of Help?
Most cheap web hosting companies don't offer hacker support or help for free. In almost every case, this type of customer support is only available for an additional charge. For some web hosting companies, charging an extra fee for site support is a great way to make more money, but this tactic could actually be doing more harm than good.
The same survey found that webmasters are three times more likely to change web hosting providers if help is not included in a hosting package. As it turns out, website owners would rather pay more for a package that includes hacker help and support than pay extra for that same support in a time of need. What can you learn from this survey?
How Hackers Hurt Cheap Hosting Companies: Lessons Learned
Sometimes adding additional features to a package for a high fee isn't the way to go. When a site hack happens, your clients will need your help and support. If that support doesn't exist, those site owners will simply seek a different host that does offer help. There's something else at play here too.
Once it becomes obvious to hackers that a particular hosting company has lax security, those people will target sites hosted by that company (How Hackers Hurt Cheap Hosting Companies). In other words: if your hosting site doesn't offer great security and a way to ward off hackers post-hack, you are setting yourself up for bigger troubles.
How Hackers Hurt Cheap Hosting Companies: How to Include Hacker Support
Adding around-the-clock IT support for all clients can be costly, and that's not the way to go in most cases. However, you can enter a contract clause that includes help in the case of a site hack or other attack. This bit of fine print may be enough to ease client minds, and you can prove your company worthy when support is at hand after an attack.
In the world of web hosting and cyber attacks, a little bit of extra help goes a really long way – just look at the facts. As always, we're here to help you figure it all out, so just ask if you need some tips or other bits of information.
Image courtesy of altermark via Flickr Creative Commons
Experts have alleged that some terrorist organizations have hacked dozen business websites with image from Boston to Missoula. It’s really unpredictable that cyber criminals are associated with foreign nationals. Law enforcement agencies could spend months trying to figure out who’s behind the attacks. Cyber-attacks are probably at top of threat list for the United States.