The news is shocking but it has happened. Russia has begun the invasion of Ukraine in order to restore the country under Putin’s perceived narrative of “Russian history”. To start, Russian hackers immediately started to infiltrate both government and financial institution websites rendering them all useless and most likely losing valuable data and access to functions that are needed to do “business as usual”. Many of the functions could include monitoring, managing resources, equipment, finances, employees and assets.

For the first time, plunging that part of Europe into a “war” using cyber warfare to begin the invasion.

Just because Ukraine is on the other side of the world, their peril should be and is of great concern to not only NATO but surrounding Balkan countries as well as to Western countries such as the US. But the concern should not stop there. The unprovoked invasion has also sparked global price increases in oil, food products and exports on certain raw materials that the entire world relies on. In addition to that, since Russia has used “digital warfare” such as hacking, it has also stoked fear that world wide that Ukraine will not be the only target of this type of “invasion”. It is well known and highly reported that Russian government has been involved with other well known global cyber attacks. Ever heard of “NotPetya”? This cyber attack was malware disguised as ransomware that affected Ukranian financial, energy and government institutions. It also cost Maersk over $300 million dollars in damages.

If you are website owner, business or personal it is of high importance to check to make sure that your site is as secure as it could possibly be. No site is safe from any hacker, malware or malicious code even with the most secure anti-malware software installed . But the more preventative measures you take up front, the more likely your site will either survive or least be restored even after a hack has taken place.

Here are some important steps:

1. Back up your site now! Keep a copy of your back up on your desktop or a separate file or folder that is not on a cloud server. Even the most secure cloud servers have their vulnerabilities and can be breached or hacked. Amazon cloud servers (aka AWS) were hacked in October 2021. AWS services some of the largest business in the world. Even if your site has been hacked, it takes less than an hour to restore provided the back up copy is not corrupt. This is your most important step!
2. Check to make sure that your site has been updated to latest platforms or version, with latest security updates. Having security checks or scans will help in discovering malicious code to be removed. Some host providers have enhanced security scans that will provide the scans such as Sitelock which will offer a limited free version or you can also install “Wordfence” if you have a wordpress site which also offers a free version. Both offer more robust options with better security and they both offer to remove offensive code for an additional cost.
3. Perform periodic scans with Mcafee or other type of computer scanning software that will also assist in removing malware from your computer. Make sure that you turn off your computer when you are done! Open doors is an invitation to bots and spiders with malicious intent.
4. And it cannot hurt to move or back up your computer files to an external storage hard drive as a precaution! If your computer is hacked and locked up or even held for ransom, you can have those important files on an external drive and plug n play into a new computer and work from there. There are several high capacity storage drives that can store large amount of data.

In addition, please read as much as you can about preventive measures that you can take up front to mitigate such security breaches and threats. You can read more about protecting your site here .

Or if you need assistance to see if your site is as secure as it could be please contact me at 443-540-9884 or email with your inquiry at njk@stellaronlineservices.com.

Stellar Online Services

SEO, SEM Account Manager

Over 30 Years of award winning and successful advertising, internet, and digital media management as well as effective website and landing page design for human visitors and search engine optimization.

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