Website Maintenance: Security Risks

WM built a website optimized for SEO, with customized plugins – the whole nine yards, it was large and complicated website. At website launch, and during the WordPress training afterword, we suggested to the client that a monthly maintenance retainer was advisable and listed out the advantages. They respectfully declined, and we respectfully complied.

Challenge

Approximately a year passed with the client neglecting updates. Several major version updates had been missed, as well as a security loophole fix in the platform. Because of this, the site was hacked and we received a surprising call.

Solution

The Website Maintenance team discovered that the hacking attempt had injected buried JavaScript snippets, which were replacing the client’s content with spam text the moment the web page loaded. This explained why the verbiage was hidden when the administration area of the website was accessed. In order to clean up any instances of the injection we ended up spending approximately 5 hours scouring each individual file within the installation.

Results

Luckily, we were able to contain the issue relatively quickly and stop the DDoS attack, preventing any further damage from happening. In order to ensure that each of the potentially affected files within the server were located and the virus was eradicated, the Website Maintenance team spent approximately 6-8 additional hours of maintenance time. In total, the damage required us to spend over 10 hours, which the client paid for out of pocket.

In the end, a monthly retainer package was agreed upon and our client was ready to focus on what mattered most to them again- their business!

From The Client

“These guys have built such a strong security precautions in an effort to keep our websites safe, sound, protected and online. Relationship with our organization that we consider them an extension of our IT department. We always know that excellent service is just a phone call or e-mail away and that we will receive the same level of attention they always provide that makes us feel like we're their top priority.”