MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Reports indicate that there is a 125% increase in global incidents of cyber attacks compared to the past few years, a figure that is concerning for anyone, especially if you’re running a small or midsize online business. Website security is no longer a want but is a need for any business running online or having a digital presence. It not only makes the business secure against cyber attacks, but also protects the customers’ data and interests.
That said, here are a few reasons why you should take website security seriously for your business:
Protects The Customers
The very first reason to invest in website security is to protect your customers. If you have a website that the customers use to give their financial information to make a purchase, it becomes your responsibility to protect their data. With website security, you can protect your customers’ vital information like credit card information, IP address information available on What Is My IP, and even social security numbers. Data is invaluable in the present world and it is essential to protect it. Safeguarding the customer’s private information should be the primary reason to invest in website security.
Protects The Brand Assets
In addition to taking care of the customer’s data, it is critical to protect the brand’s digital assets. Website security protects digital data and physical assets that can be hacked digitally. A virus can totally hamper the functioning of different equipment essential to run a business. It is better to be safe than sorry. An investment in website security, along with other cybersecurity tools, gives a layer of protection to the different assets of the company.
Prevents Potential Loss Of Sales
It is easier for hackers to attack a website if it does not have any security measures. The result of it can be downtime for an extended time. The downtime reduces the business’s productivity and translates into a loss of sales, as the visibility of a business is critical to ensure continuous sales. An unprotected website is prone to downtime that, in addition to reducing sales, can also hamper the brand’s reputation.
Prevents Website Blacklisting
Every day, to protect its users, Google blacklists suspicious websites. Such websites often come with the label that the website may harm the user’s computer. This trigger can drive the users away from the website. These warnings are there for a reason, and the customers take such warnings pretty seriously – as they should. Furthermore, when a website gets blacklisted, the search engines also remove them from the indexing. It massively drops the organic traffic, which can have a devastating impact on the revenue. One easy way to avoid being blacklisted by different search engines is by taking care of website security seriously.
Maintains The Brand Reputation
Customers want to deal with brands and companies they can trust. If your company is a victim of any kind of data breach, it automatically eliminates the trust factor between the customer and your business. After making such news, the customers will think twice before engaging in any kind of transaction with your business. Additionally, it damages the company’s public reputation, which is extremely hard to recover. Losing the brand reputation not only drives away the existing customers, but also the potential customers too. Website security surely can help you to protect and maintain your brand reputation.
Getting Back To Business Is Expensive
It is not impossible to get a website back running after being hacked. However, the entire process is expensive. A hacked website demands a wide variety of investments. To begin with, one needs to hire a coder who can remove the bad code from the website. In the second step, you need to check all the corners of the website to ensure that it is clean. A small injected bad code may require a huge investment to make things good again. Along with it, the loss of brand reputation is an added cost, and the businesses will have to work twice as hard in terms of money, time, and effort to earn back the brand reputation.
Website security, along with other forms of cybersecurity, should be a priority at any minute. It does not require a heavy investment but just enough to ensure the security of the business. Every business is under a constant cyberattack threat, and all the necessary measures should be taken to protect the website and its data.
