The Importance of Keeping Software Up To Date

Details: Created: 22 March 2017

the importance of keeping software up to date

Source: Google Webmasters Blog https://webmasters.googleblog.com/

State of Website Security in 2016

First off, some unfortunate news. Google has seen an increase in the number of hacked sites by approximately 32% in 2016 compared to 2015. They don’t expect this trend to slow down. As hackers get more aggressive and more sites become outdated, hackers will continue to capitalize by infecting more sites.

Types of Hacks

Gibberish Hack: The gibberish hack automatically creates many pages with non-sensical sentences filled with keywords on the target site. Hackers do this so the hacked pages show up in Google Search. Then, when people try to visit these pages, they’ll be redirected to an unrelated page, like a porn site. Learn more on how to fix this type of hack.
Japanese Keywords Hack: The Japanese keywords hack typically creates new pages with Japanese text on the target site in randomly generated directory names. These pages are monetized using affiliate links to stores selling fake brand merchandise and then shown in Google search. Sometimes the accounts of the hackers get added in Search Console as site owners. Learn more on how to fix this type of hack.
Cloaked Keywords Hack: The cloaked keywords and link hack automatically creates many pages with non-sensical sentence, links, and images. These pages sometimes contain basic template elements from the original site, so at first glance, the pages might look like normal parts of the target site until you read the content. In this type of attack, hackers usually use cloaking techniques to hide the malicious content and make the injected page appear as part of the original site or a 404 error page. Learn more on how to fix this type of hack.

Prevention Is Key

As always it’s best to take a preventative approach and secure your site rather than dealing with the aftermath. Remember a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Google also recommends staying up-to-date on releases and announcements from your Content Management System (CMS) providers and software/hardware vendors.

Source: Google Webmasters Blog https://webmasters.googleblog.com/