Get sued for Malware Distribution

It’s becoming quite clear that this is an age of increased malware and security threats. The news is becoming more and more flooded with these kinds of reports and many of them are from reputable companies that end up looking stupid because of a vulnerability on their website. Of course, we already know many good reasons to get added security for your website: keeping your site safe and reliable, putting your customers at ease, and all of these kinds of things that I’ve said many times before. The important thing right now is that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is offering you a new reason… you could end up being fined.

An article today (which can be found at the end) announced that ChoicePoint, a databroker, is being fined $275,000 because their data was breached a second time. Now many of you may not be in a situation where your site being exploited would actually result in you being fined, but any company that’s in a situation where you have other people’s information, any information, could result in serious losses.

Of course, these are already on top of other losses, like ones noted in an ITworld article:

“The latest versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser and Google’s search engine detect sites infected with malware, issue a warning and block access to the site. ‘To me, this is serious online brand damage,’ says Garter analyst John Pescatore, and it can be disastrous for small and midsize businesses that totally depend on search engine traffic. The next frontier, says Dye, may be attackers who use these types of exploits against the Web sites of high-profile brands and then publicize — or threaten to publicize — what happened.”

Don’t take risks with your website. It may run flawlessly today and it may run flawlessly tomorrow, but if your site is not secure, it could cost you. And sadly, more and more companies are discovering this right now.

Don’t be one of them.  Scan your website with Acunetix today!

Reference articles:

http://www.cso.com.au/article/322712/choicepoint_pay_275_000_second_data_breach/?fp=2&fpid=1&rid=1
http://www.itworld.com/security/81482/hijacked-web-sites-attack-visitors

THE AUTHOR

Acunetix

Acunetix developers and tech agents regularly contribute to the blog. All the Acunetix developers come with years of experience in the web security sphere.