Server Monitoring, the Last Line of Defense

You’ve been hacked!

You feel violated, angry, and frustrated. Whether it is a denial of service, malicious code, or defacement, hacking is like having your house broken into. You’ve done everything you could, yet still somehow your website or servers are successfully attacked.

And the problem is only getting worse. According to zone-h.org there were 1.5 million websites defaced in 2010 (the 2011 final numbers aren’t posted yet). Defacement is when a website’s home page is altered by a hacker, possibly with the insertion of code that will subsequently attack visitors. Many businesses find out about such attacks from customers who call or email after seeing the defacement. That’s definitely not how you want to find out.

It isn’t just defacement. Last year Korean University experienced a hack with malicious code on their email server. According to the Dong-A ILBO the University took action to avoid it happening again (affiliate of BBC):

“Korea University blocked the graduate school’s email server, which runs separately, and integrated all accounts with the university account that has a relatively stronger firewall and security protection. After the hacking attempt, it reinforced server monitoring and reinforced security education among staff.”

There are obviously many ways to protect your website and servers. But how can you protect yourself during those times when the hackers still make it through? Server or website monitoring can serve as the last line of defense in those cases. Often hackers make changes that lock you out of your system, break links, or change databases in such a way that monitoring can detect.

If the hackers get through your defenses, server monitoring can alert you. You can be the first to the website to assess what happened and take the site down before your customers start making those calls. With Alertra, setting up server or website monitoring is easy. Why not check out our free trial today, and make sure your customers never see anything other than what you want them to see.

Do you have any stories to share about being hacked? What did you do to get back up and running?