Contrary to popular belief, most website hacks are not targeted at e-commerce sites in attempts to steal credit-card information. Hackers are far more likely to be looking for websites using popular content management systems such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal in order to infect the website with malware.

Websites infected with malware can then cause malicious software to be installed on your visitors computers.  From there, hackers can gain access to sensitive customer data like credit-card numbers, emails, and even bank account information.  Some malware can even set up hidden “phishing” websites in your hosting account that can be used to try and fool visitors into revealing private data.

Once your site is infected, it can destroy your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) ranking, and will result in Google blocking your website until long after the infection is removed.