This is an arresting image of an innocent little Monopoly-style house sitting snugly in the forest, unaware that it is being hunted.
I crafted this on purpose because the world of websites has changed and become dystopian.
Those of us with websites have always lived online amid a swarm of pesky hackers, phishers, and SEO-peddlers, buzzing us like mosquitoes. Often it is just noise for us to swat away and ignore (no, this is not an email from Netflix, no, this is not an urgent security update for my email, no, you have not looked at my website and found issues) but every now and then, one would get through and bite.
Security plugins have promised the world, like insect repellent, and ‘kind of’ delivered by keeping the pests at bay.
But last month’s alarming incident of AI tools discovering a major hole in one of the fundamental building blocks of the web, PHP, should be the final wake up call needed to take website security seriously.
I have loved the era of genteel websites that get scoffed at by fancy developers but which do what they are meant to do for a small business for their small niche. But they are no longer off grid and safe in the woods. Crooks are using AI tools to hunt websites and sniff out any vulnerability they can find.
There is nowhere to hide. You can never be obscure enough. For all intents and purposes, your humble little website is sitting in the middle of Times Square or Adelaide Oval, for all the world (of crooks) to see.
At a bare minimum, you must start doing this today:
- Update all passwords to be complicated ones or, better still, use a password keeper tool (I use Dashlane) and create passkeys for your websites.
- Enact two-factor authentication, preferably using an authenticator app like Google Authenticator.
- Update all plugins and content management systems (like WordPress, for example) and delete any that are not active.
- Commit to checking for updates weekly or, at worst, monthly.
- Subscribe to our newsletter so you can get timely alerts, should they ever be needed.
- Listen to Talking About Marketing because our Problem segment each fortnight provides small insights into the way these crooks work, to keep you armed and aware.
The reason we offer our Website Maintenance Plans is because this is a prudent measure for any website owner. Yes, it is a cost but it pales to insignificance compared to the cost of being hacked. It’s also a fraction of the maintenance costs of a bricks and mortar store.
I wish I knew how to sweeten this pill, but I cannot. It is a bitter one. The web world just got a magnitude nastier. And now we need to treat our websites with the seriousness they have always deserved.