Cyber Security Month: How to Protect Your Website from Hackers

The "European Cyber Security Month" initiative, which was founded in 2012, shows that cybercrime is not a new phenomenon. Almost ten years ago, the European Cyber Security Agency (ENISA) launched an annual awareness campaign to highlight and promote different aspects of cybersecurity. The European Cyber Security Month is committed to protect not only citizens and organizations, but also companies, and to prevent cyber threats.

With the increasing digitalization, medium-sized businesses have developed a more and more complex infrastructure and the risk of being targeted by unscrupulous criminals due to critical security gaps has considerably increased. Although the risks of a hacking attack are well-known, the number of companies that fall into the trap of hackers and fraudsters has been rising over the years. 

A report by Sonicwall shows a dramatic increase of ransomware attacks in the first half of 2021, eclipsing the entire volume for 2020 in only six months. Using increasingly sophisticated methods, hackers have specialized in stealing data. Cyber threats are extremely dangerous for businesses: Criminals strategically plan profit-motivated attacks in order to steal data and, using extortion, to obtain high sums of money. 

Not only the costs of cyberattacks and restoration of IT systems often exceed those of a meticulously organized security infrastructure: A cybersecurity breach can lead to a massive loss of revenue, damage the reputation of a company and threaten its very existence.

Last year alone, the damage caused by cybercrime to the German economy amounted to over 220 billion euros, as a recent study by Bitkom shows. Experts warn that it is almost impossible to take protective measures after an attack has taken place and instead advise the timely implementation of rigorous security management. You can find further information about the average cost of data breaches worldwide here.

Hackers gain access to infrastructure using not only classic channels such as phishing emails. A corporate website can also be a gateway for hackers and malware: In many web-based CMS, vulnerabilities unfortunately remain a constant risk factor, making sensitive data an easy prey for cyberattacks. Especially if plug-ins and themes are developed by small project groups, they are not updated often enough after release. This lack of attention can quickly become a security problem. For instance, WordPress experienced serious security vulnerabilities causing a security breach in 2020.

As a study by Imperva reports, 97.4% of WordPress security vulnerabilities can be traced back to plug-ins. Security breaches caused by the use of insecure plug-ins can certainly put a company at risk: Hackers can change content on websites, spy on personal data, or even install malware. In the age of the GDPR, this leads not only to bad PR, but also to conflicts with data protection authorities.

For these reasons, companies that value protection against hackers and data security should focus on the right architecture when choosing their content management system. Serverless CMS working with Jamstack technology such as Scrivito, which use a state-of-the-art cloud architecture, are particularly secure. A high-quality content management system leaves hackers no chance and is thus protected from unauthorized access. With Scrivito, the unmatched security standards of the international cloud market leader Amazon provide additional protection.

Weitere Informationen zum Thema zukunftssicheres CMS finden Sie in unserem White Paper: