You want a lot of traffic stopping by your site each day, but there are some who aren’t welcome — anytime! Site hacking for fun and profit is going on right now, and these hackers have limited social lives and lots of time on their hands.

There’s no way you can keep out all of the bad guys. Google, Choice Point, AOL and even the US Department of Defense have all been hacked. But who is doing this, and why, and what can you do about it?

Who Are These Hackers?
Because you don’t know the difference between an HTML title tag and a dog tag, you might logically presume that hackers are all tech school grads with a bunch of degrees in computer science. They probably write their own code and know all the tricks to pick the lock on your site’s front door, right?

Nothing could be further from the truth. Oh sure, the digi-talented post-docs are out there, developing the next worm or virus or Trojan horse, and they may try to hack your site, but where’s the fun in that? Most likely, the hacker who trashes your site is a bored, 15-year-old, surfing the web on his entry-level computer. And like you, this kid knows little or nothing about computing, coding or cracking sites.

The fact is, these script-kiddies (as computer security experts call them) can find all kinds of hacker software on the different hacker sites that litter the I-net. This software can be downloaded and used to disrupt your business and spray graffiti all over your home page — while you’re sleeping! (Can you imagine the intelligence of somebody who downloads hacker software from another hacker? The download could turn a hard drive into a smoldering clump of silicone in a nanosecond, converting dad’s $5000 laptop into a doorstop in the time it takes to say ‘Gotcha’. You’d have to be insane, or just plain stupid, but that’s what script-kiddies do daily.)

Hackers come in all shapes and sizes. What’s important is that any one of them can turn your investment of time and money spent developing your site into time and money down the big tube — and you won’t even know what hit you.

Why Hack?
Why not? Why smash mailboxes? Why loot and pillage? There’s always going to be an element of society that wants to subvert the status quo.

Some hackers are in it for the sport. They’re after bragging rights, so hacking into your little site doesn’t offer the thrill of cracking into the college computer to change grades for friends and neighbors.

The more serious threat to you comes from the predatory hacker who is out to gather personal data like credit card numbers, e-mail addresses, bank account numbers and other digital information that can be used to create an on-line persona capable of purchasing a 42-inch plasma TV using the data stored on your host server, or even on your own hard drive. These guys pose the greatest danger to small site owners — and they’ve got the weapons of war at their disposal.

Take ‘dictionary’ software. These scripts are available for download in lots of places. They can be attached to your site’s entry point and then, using a random-character generator, methodically go through every conceivable sequence of numbers and letters until they’re in. It may take a few hours or days, but who cares. The software is automated, it runs on its own and the user can be watching “Gilligan’s Island” reruns when the bell goes off, indicating that entry has been achieved.

The truth is that you’ll never keep the truly sophisticated hacker out of your business, but you can certainly keep the ‘door handle jiggling’ black hat out of your little cybershop.

What’s A Small Site Owner To Do?
No, you don’t have to take it. There are things you can and should do to make your site safer for those who visit and for yourself.

1. Get proactive. If you’re reacting to a hack attack, it’s already too late. Take steps today to improve site safety.

2. Never give out your site account information to anyone. If everybody knows your log-on password, you’ve left the keys to your store in the front door and anyone can enter.

3. Extend your password and change it often. If you’re currently using a four- or six-digit password to access your host server, add some digits — as many as you can. And change your site’s password monthly. This will make it a lot more difficult to use dictionary and other forms of ‘brute force’ software.

4. Buy, use and update security software. Protect your system with anti-virus software. Purchase firewall software. A firewall filters all incoming data for suspect code and deletes it before it can harm your system.

If part of your business requires that you receive e-mail from unfamiliar sources — customers, for example — use your anti-virus software to scan all e-mail before you open it.

And because new viruses and other toxic codes are being developed all of the time, keep your security software up-to-date by downloading patches from the manufacturer’s site. These new scripts protect against the latest attacks devised by on-line vandals and thugs.

5. Encrypt. Encryption software should be SOP for any site that maintains personal information — either your personal information, or that of your clients or customers. Encryption software converts any outgoing or incoming data to gibberish until it’s unencrypted by the intended receiver, putting the majority of hackers out of business.

Unless you’re a professional site designer, encryption should be done by an expert. Hire a computer security consultant, or a reputable design firm, to install and maintain your encryption software.

6. Change the way you think. Most site owners assume the best. That’s why they’re always stunned when the worst happens. Be skeptical of every site you visit, every e-mail you open, every transaction you conduct. If it doesn’t look right, smell right or feel right, back out of the path to safety. It’s just not worth the risk. Trust no one.

Finally, recognize your own limitations. It’s true, you won’t be able to keep the truly dedicated, knowledgeable hacker at bay. If they can hack the DoD system, what chance do you have? However, by taking some simple steps and changing a few old habits, you can keep the vast majority of hackers looking elsewhere for fun. And, by taking a proactive stance, you can better prepare your site, your data and yourself against hactivities that can do harm to your business. In other words, take steps today!

In many respects, the world wide web is pretty much a wild place with spotty oversight and more scallywags and neer-do-wells doing shoddy work, trying to beat the system and increase their PageRank and presence — oh, and increase sales, too.

Then there are the problems of compatibility — you’ve got such a large code set from which to choose — HTML, XHTML, XLC, et al, that compatibility issues will only continue to confuse the matter more.

Imagine the world of widgets, a niche market but one with potential. Any way, all the widget makes get together one day and agree that from henceforth all widgets will only be constructed using #3 hex bolts. What a break-through in the manufacturing of widgets. Unit costs drop because no special bolts are needed. Interchangeability becomes easier. Upgrades are a snap and, in one very obvious sense, the world of widgets has become-just a little bit closer.

Anyway, you get the point. There are business benefits — today — to jumping on the bandwagon and starting to use open standards in your site development work.

Look, here’s how it breaks down, strictly from the bottom line POV:

Increased Accessibility
Using open standards in the development or upgrade of your site increases user accessibility by eliminating incompatibilities in older browsers and by being compliant with the protocols of cellular e-mail and the integration of other communications systems — today and in the future.

In other words, by designing your site to be compliant, you’re making it easier to adapt to new technologies as they become available:

• access to your site from your cell
• e-mail from anywhere, any time
• easy access to the ever-more popular hand-held computers (which work with a full-bore Windows OS)
• on-line order-taking from cell phone customers

All of these integrated functions have any easier time finding your site when it’s been built to industry standards. It brings just a bit of law and order to the lawless www.

Up and Running Faster Simplified Maintenance
One aspect of open standards involves separating XHTML (the text) of your site from the graphic elements. This allows for just about anyone to develop the text using simple meta tags — <div>, <p>, etc. So what? Well, with tags pointing to a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS), you’ve begun to super-charged your site.

In addition, the client can easily develop all of the text and back end content while the designer is putting together the architecture. By divvying up the work, and with parallel site development you ensure that your site is up and running sooner — an especially critical consideration when you’re financing this out of your own pocket and it’s time to get some inflow to offset the outgo, or at least slow down your burn rate. In other words, open standards will make site design more efficient, easier, faster and less costly.

On the maintenance side, a uniform set of building modalities will ensure easy maintenance and revisions to any site. Modules that conform to the site standards can be plugged in quickly (read cheaply), changing the look and lowering the cost of routine site maintenance.

More Sites in Less Time
Web-compliant browsers have forced site designers to rethink everything from the bottom up. These browsers’ (now approximately 95% of all browsers sold today) use of open standards has forced us all to discard the old rule of ‘every site for itself’ and begin the process of standardization.

From the purely proactive perspective, many clients are setting up multiple sites for various test marketings, among other things. So, a standard code, used by the entire hard hat I-net population simplifies replication of sites within different SEs. In other words, open standards will allow you to do more work in less time because you won’t be confronted with compatibility hassles.

Reduced Hosting Costs
By segregating text from other site elements, and by eliminating extraneous under-performing site functions, you’ll take up less cyber space, lowering your monthly costs for hosting services. In effect, open standards are more efficient standards and as such, will lower bandwidth, saving you money every month — money that adds up over time.

Much Happier Visitors
A site that dogs loading the home page doesn’t bode well for visitor or site owner. Only 5% of visitors have the patience to sit out a 30-second download — 5%! Now, sure, broadband has made the problem less of a problem, but there are still a lot of users still running old, clunky, dial-up modems.

By simplifying code and optimizing your site for speed, each visitor will have a more positive experience. No one wants to wait for downloads any more. Simplify and give your site some impact — without losing anything in the way of appearance or user features. After all, even on the www, the customer is always right.

So Should You Or Shouldn’t You?
You’ve got a site. It’s up and running, no complaints about traffic, it looks good and you spent big bucks getting it that way. And changing over to open standards — HTML, XHTML and CSS is going to be a costly proposition — not millions, but more than putting on a new roof. So, the question becomes: should I spend the money to develop a compliant website, or hold on to what I’ve got?

Obviously, only you can answer that question depending on your site income, current PR, inbound links and other cyber considerations. But do bear in mind that the movement to establish open standards for site development isn’t losing steam. In fact, it’s gaining momentum.

Is it something you have to do today? No. Next week? Uh-uh. Ever? Yes. At some point it’s going to make quantifiable business sense (read more $$$) to develop a standards compliant site. Do it now and enjoy immediate benefits — faster load times, a more vigorous, active site, an improved visitor experience, lower bandwidth costs and adaptability in the future.