Feb 7, 2012

When Is a Web Hacker Good for My Business?

[caption id="attachment_393" align="alignright" width="392" caption="Hackers can be good for business."]

[/caption] When you ask for one. A new trend can enhance your sense of security for your website and/or confidential business data. To ensure that your website, business server, or database is secure, hire a professional hacker and have him target you for an evaluation. Sounds crazy! This way, you can actually see how resilient and secure your confidential data and business information truly is. In order to complete a web security check, the professional hacker must compile a survey and full report, which exposes vulnerabilities as well as makes suggestions to fix the holes. Once completed, the assessment must be repeated and tested on a regular basis to ensure that the security fences and forces are impenetrable and remain so. Most business owners do not realize that these openings may have been created by developers who work on websites or databases and forget to close these openings, leading to hackers entering systems or databases. Constant monitoring and surveillance can find these vulnerabilities and should be remediated immediately to keep confidential information secure. A survey conducted by The Small Business Authority showed that out of more than 1,200 responding small-business owners, only 27 percent have had an outside party test their computer systems to ensure they are hacker proof. Very few business owners have taken the necessary precaution of having a professional data-security firm perform an assessment. With recent breaches of security at Citibank and Sony in mind, small-business owners should step up and ensure that their confidential business information is protected. This article originally appeared on Forbes.com.