News Alert: HostingAdvice poll finds one in three Americans hacked upon visiting sketchy websites – Source: www.lastwatchdog.com

Gainesville, Fla., July 18, 2022 – Around 30,000 websites get hacked every day, with the majority of those cyberattacks due to human error. This has projected costs associated with cybercrimes to hit the tens of trillions by 2025, highlighting the vital need for web hosts to implement staunch security.

A new study by HostingAdvice, the premier authority on web hosting, found that 32% of Americans say they’ve gotten hacked from visiting a sketchy website and of those, 53% got a computer virus. The additional result of these hacks include:

•51% had their information phished

•43% had credit card information stolen

•35% had their username and password stolen

•17% had their identity stolen or cloned

Additionally, the study found that a large majority of Americans (75%) harbor genuine concerns about visiting websites that do not look secure. Of those, more than half (58%) said their biggest security concerns when visiting a small business website is “insecure transactions” (where credit card info could get stolen), other concerns include:

•55% – It may be a fake website (website that poses as a real one)

•51% – Phishing Attacks (hackers targeting my email or social media accounts)

•47% – I’ll get a virus

•43% – Disinformation / Misinformation

•42% – Spyware

Web Hosts reveal security features they can’t live without. It may sound inflated to hear that the study found 34% of Americans have used web hosting services. But not when considering that there are more than a billion websites live on the web, with more than 250,000 new web sites created every day.

In fact, the study reveals that one of the most important factors when choosing a good web hosting service is Security/Privacy features (47%), second only to Price (51%). Additional factors include that servers are in-house and not managed by a third party (42%) and many favor server customization and root access (40%), all important to developing and managing a more secure website.

Web Hosting service users’ biggest security concerns are that their domain, or subdomains, will get a virus/worms (49%) or there will be additional cost for security services (45%), while other concerns include:

•2% – Someone will steal my clients’ data

•36% – Botnet-Building Attempts

•37% – DDoS Attacks

•37% – Web Server Misconfigurations

When asked about the security features they can’t live without, 62% of Web Hosting service users said either Data Protection (backups and recovery services) or Threat protection (DDoS, malware, and bot detection features), while another 52% said Encryption (SSH, SSL, WAF).

The Master Cybersecurity Guide for Web Hosts. “More than ever before, there is a vital need for businesses to fortify their security to protect data online. But it can be hard to identify which features and add-ons are actually worth the investment,” said Christina Lewis, editor and web hosting expert at HostingAdvice.

The Master Cybersecurity Guide was developed to help web hosts, designers and programmers understand which cybersecurity measures will best protect their websites and users against viruses, hackers, and breaches. Whether developing secure access, data protection and/or threat protection, implementing the best tools to safeguard your websites can be tedious, so it’s important to seek guidance to mitigate the risks of being attacked. 

Methodology: A national online survey of 1,055 U.S. consumers, ages 18 and over, was conducted by Propeller Insights on behalf of HostingAdvice in June of 2021. Survey responses were nationally representative of the U.S. population for age, gender, region, and ethnicity. The maximum margin of sampling error was +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

ABOUT: HostingAdvice.com is a site created to provide users with the most dependable, trustworthy hosting advice found on the web. As “The Authority on Web Hosting,” HostingAdvice.com is home to unique content and resources in the hosting industry, including: blog articles, how-to guides, reviews and the world’s best beginner’s guide. Led by a team of real web experts who have a combined 50+ years of experience in web hosting, HostingAdvice.com has truly become the authority on all things hosting: hostingadvice.com.

July 18th, 2023 | Uncategorized