Website Defacement: What Is It and What Can You Do to Fight It?

Making changes to a company’s website that alters the visual appearance, written content, or overall message of the website is a form of corporate sabotage that cam harm your company’s reputation and reduce profits. Any company that has a website is vulnerable to website defacement, particularly those without effective identity and security management. To learn more about website defacement, what it is, what threats it can pose to your business, and how it can be prevented, check out the information below.

What is website defacement?

Website defacement is the process and result of an attack that changes the content of a company’s website in an offensive or business-harming way. In many defacement cases, a visit to your site by a user of your products or services triggers the download of malicious code onto the user’s hard drive, which can be controlled by the hacker remotely in the future.

Methods of website defacement

SQL injections are often used to log into administrator accounts. After this, the defacer has access to most or all parts of a website. Defacement’s often contain messages that talk down to a system administrator for failure to exercise attentive security management procedures. Sometimes, they are harmless and embarrassing. At other times, they can have a negative impact on your business and on your customers’ hard drives.

How to fight and prevent website defacement?

The best way to prevent website defacement is to employ the security and identity management solutions recommended and installed by a top-tier technology consulting group. These skilled professionals can integrate your system in a way that makes it more difficult for the unwelcome to crack into it. To fight an attack, you can hire the same security management team to restore your system back to normal and determine who the attacker was.

Has your company’s website recently been defaced? PathMaker Group’s highly trained and educated investigative team can analyze digital forensic evidence on the web-server and track down your attacker using networking traffic information. Call us at (817) 704-3644 to find out more about the identity management and system integration services we provide to companies throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

An Overview of Digital Forensics and Electronic Discovery

Digital forensics and electronic discovery involve the collection and analysis of electronically-stored data. Together, these two fields of electronic security cover the entire digital information spectrum. To find out more about what each one is and when or why you may want to hire an investigative team to perform digital forensics and electronic discovery procedures for your company, continue reading this article.

What is digital forensics?

Digital forensics entails the thorough examination of electronic storage devices. In the process, electronic systems investigators identify, collect, maintain, and analyze the data stored on an electronic device. After doing so, they produce results based on their analyses that are defensible enough to be upheld in a court of law. Deleted, damaged, and encrypted files are all included in the analysis and the data explained in the results.

What is electronic discovery?

Electronic discovery, or e-discovery, is the process of gathering electronic data so that it is readily available and can be stored on a variety of electronic storage devices. This data is gathered and stored via:

  • Information and identity management.
  • Collection and preservation of all data.

When good e-discovery practices are employed at a company, e-discovery records can be sent to a team of digital forensics investigators for:

  • Processing, analysis, review, and presentation of results.

When are these processes necessary?

Electronic discovery should be practiced by any company that stores sensitive data and records that are crucial to future business. Digital forensics should be employed when a company needs to draw on its performance history to justify a decision made in the present, as well as whenever a company is facing legal action. A forensics team can ensure the files and digital history stored on your computer that support your case will provide you with valid courtroom evidence.

Are you a Dallas-based business owner who is looking for services in the field of electronic security and identity? If so, call PathMaker Group at (817) 704-3644 and ask about our electronic discovery, digital forensics, and identity management services today!