Hackers spike Turn On love drink site
On the Tuesday after the Australia Day long weekend Robinson went to log into his website only to find a message telling him hackers had hijacked the site and he needed to wire $5000 to a Western Union account for the site to be re- instated.
There has been plenty of publicity about the product, which is yet to hit shelves here, and Robinson has been doing the rounds of hotels, convenience stores and pharmacies to sign distribution deals. He's relied on the site as a place where potential suppliers and distributors can go to get information.
The site's inbuilt Facebook functionality has also allowed him to develop an online community of people interested in being able to get hold of the product as soon as it's available.
"It was panic stations when I saw the message. We'd sent more than 1000 presentations to distributors who were all going to the site to know more. [After the attack] there was nothing there for them. It was a disaster for us," Robinson said.
The site was being managed in the US and built on the Ning platform. As soon as the attack happened Robinson got in touch with the US tech support team.
"They took it very seriously and thought everything would be OK because it was backed up," he said.
Tech support took about six hours to get back to Robinson with the news that the problem was worse than they first thought. It took them a week to get the site back up and running.
"We obviously didn't pay the ransom. But [when the site was down] we were incommunicado with customers, potential customers and followers," Robinson said.
"Luckily, we could use social media to keep in touch with people. But it's hard to track what this has cost us in potential sales," he said, adding that lost sales would be "in the high tens of thousands."
Robinson is now working through a plan to get back in touch with suppliers and customers.
"But it's looking like we're going to have to start from scratch. We're going to have to go back to basics to start driving traffic to the site again. We're back to square one," he said.
Internet strategist Nigel Burke, from web developers AVS Networks, said having a great relationship with your web developer was the first step in being able to recover from an online attack.
"Make sure you have their contact details on hand and that they are familiar with your site," Burke said.
"The webmaster should preferably be the person who made the original site. But if not, make sure the webmaster is familiar with the platform the site is built on and has the username and password to reduce the recovery time."
He said it was essential to have a plan in place in case of attack and to make sure staff knew what that plan was in case the business owner wasn't around if the site went down.
There are also lots of tools that reduce the impact of an attack. Burke said Google's Webmaster Tools messaged the site administrator if a virus was found on the site.
SiteLock is another tool that can notify a site manager if an external party makes changes to their site.
"Businesses also have to keep backing up their site, especially if it's an e-commerce site, which should be backed up on the same day. If you lose a week's worth of business as a result of an attack you might lose 700 orders, which would be critical to the business."
Having a pre-written email that can be sent to customers in the event of attack to let them know what's happening, as well as putting up an interim website, are other ways to let the world know the business hasn't disappeared.
"Ninety-nine per cent of attacks are untargeted. Web crawlers look for vulnerable sites and when they find a site they break into it automatically. Hackers aren't trying to bring you down - they don't care who they get."
Frequently Asked Questions about this Article…
The Australasian licence holder David Robinson found a message demanding a $5,000 Western Union payment to reinstate the site. The site, built on the Ning platform and managed in the US, was down for about a week while tech support investigated and recovered it.
When the site was hijacked, more than 1,000 distributors who had been sent presentations could not access information, leaving the business incommunicado with customers and potential customers. Robinson estimated lost sales in the 'high tens of thousands' and said it was hard to track the full cost of missed opportunities.
They did not pay the ransom. While the site was down they used social media to keep in touch with followers and customers, though Robinson said it was still difficult to quantify lost sales without the main site.
The article recommends having a strong relationship with your web developer or webmaster, making sure they know the platform and have usernames and passwords, having a clear response plan staff understand, keeping up-to-date backups (especially for e-commerce), and preparing pre-written emails or an interim website to notify customers if the main site goes down.
The article mentions Google Webmaster Tools, which can message site administrators if a virus is found, and SiteLock, which can notify a site manager if external changes occur. It also stresses daily backups for e-commerce sites to avoid losing orders.
Tech support initially took about six hours to report back, but after assessing the problem they needed about a week to get the site fully back up and running.
According to the article, most attacks are not targeted: 'Ninety-nine per cent of attacks are untargeted.' Web crawlers scan the internet for vulnerable sites and break into them automatically rather than specifically targeting a particular business.
Investors should note that a single website attack can disrupt sales, supplier contacts and marketing—potentially costing tens of thousands of dollars. Check that portfolio companies have webmaster contacts, backup routines, an incident plan, and basic monitoring tools (like Google Webmaster Tools or SiteLock) to reduce recovery time and revenue loss.
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