Many, many, many of us have found ways to make money online. Whether you write blog posts, sell handmade goods, sell t-shirts, or promote your service it’s a profitable business. However, nothing is worse than having your site down because of hackers! It’s very stressful. While technology has made it easy to launch, run and expand your online store, it also poses a major threat to your business.
I’ve been the victim of a hacker before, and let me tell you… it is no fun! Having your site compromised is stressful. It can affect deadlines, and money. Online security has become extremely important in recent years and as technology advances, so too do the hackers who are desperate to get hold of your data. This means it’s become difficult to protect your systems against a cyber-attack and identify potential dangers. If you’re trying to ensure your eCommerce website is adequately protected, one thing you’ll want to invest in is penetration testing.
Why Penetration Testing?
Penetration testing is quickly gaining recognition in the business world thanks to its exceptionally high success rate at preventing cyber-attacks. However, the main thing you need to understand about penetration testing, or pen-testing for short, is that it is purely an identification and detection tool, rather than a solution.
It involves hacking into your systems, identifying any potential weaknesses and then exploiting them, just the way a hacker would do. You’re then provided with a report to see what weaknesses the test found and more importantly, what would happen if a hacker were to gain access. It’s then up to you to make any necessary changes to enhance your cyber-security.
What Are the Benefits?
Penetration testing delivers so many crucial benefits for businesses, and websites. Not only does it enable you to get on top of any security weaknesses you might have before an attack happens, but it also:
- Prevents huge financial losses
- Protects your reputation
- Improves customer trust
If a hacker were to get to the data stored via your website, it could have serious financial implications. Not only could they potentially steal your company’s financial and personal information, but they could also get their hands on customer data too. If this were to happen, you could end up facing serious court battles which could total hundreds of thousands of pounds depending upon what data was stolen and how it affected your customers. We have heard this happen to big companies a few times in the past few years.
Of course, this would also significantly damage your reputation and you would lose customer trust. The worst-case scenario would be you would be forced to shut down your eCommerce store. So, with this in mind, paying for penetration testing to prevent a data breach is obviously a valuable investment.
Overall, penetration testing should be a crucial element of an eCommerce websites cyber security strategy. The consequences of a cyber-attack could be far more damaging to your business than you might think.
No matter what type of site you have, you want to make sure that you protect it from hackers.
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