Keep your website up to date
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Created: Thursday, 29 September 2016 16:21
My team and I have consulted and been a part of developing dozens of websites and servers. One of the things that seems that seems to be often overlooked is the maintenance. With all of the cyber attacks and vulnerabilities, there is a need to keep the software and websites running on systems updated with the latest patches.
Regardless of what platform your website is running on, or the back-end operating system running on your web server, they all have vulnerabilities that need to be patched. While applying updates and patches do not eliminate all weaknesses of a system, it does reduce the types of possible attacks. Typically once weaknesses are found in applications, the authors of those applications work to resolve many of those issues.
I have heard countless reasons why people do not invest in keeping their systems up-to-date, and the most common one is that there is nothing contained that hackers want. Sometimes it is not always about the data that can be collected, but the people that can be exploited. Ransom attacks in cyber space are real and has negatively impacted businesses and hospitals. While there may not be any data contained on a system that hackers may want, the system itself can be used to carryout other types of attacks. The types of attacks can vary form using your system to commit a cyber crime to using it hide the trail of a cyber crime.
This is especially important when your systems collect or store sensitive information like credit card numbers or social security numbers of customers. While I am not a lawyer, understand that keeping your systems up-to-date is part of due diligence. Also, consider the cost associated with repairing a reputation after a cyber attack. These types of attacks do not inspire confidence in the consumers that are doing business with you. The cost for damage control after an event could exceed to cost of the event.