Mark Evans
Business Development Director
This month has marked a shift in the cybersecurity landscape. If you've been following the news, you'll have seen the headlines: large-scale cyber attacks, newly discovered weaknesses in widely used web technologies and the growing role of AI in speeding up attacks. Commentators have called it "Black October".
If you own or manage a website, it should prompt a serious review of your hosting and support arrangements.
What happened this month
In a single week in late October, the makers of several widely used web technologies released urgent security fixes. Some of the flaws could let an attacker take control of a web server without needing a password. Between them, these technologies sit behind millions of websites.
That cluster of alerts, alongside reports of attackers exploiting known weaknesses, is what earned the month its name. It's an informal label, but the pattern behind it is real, and it isn't going away.
Why AI changes the economics of attack
A successful attack used to take deep technical skill, time and money. AI has changed that calculation. Attacks are now easier and cheaper to run, and they're automated at scale against web servers worldwide.
The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has judged that AI will "almost certainly increase the volume and heighten the impact of cyber attacks", largely by making it easier for less skilled attackers.
What this means for your website
For most organisations, the biggest risk isn't the website you see. It's everything underneath: the server it runs on and the software that keeps it working. Your hosting and support arrangement decides how quickly those layers are updated and who notices when something goes wrong.
If you're not sure what your current arrangement covers, that's the first thing to find out.
How we approach security
At Webreality, safeguarding our clients' digital assets is the foundation of our business. With over 25 years of experience, our roots in information security run deep. We're certified to ISO 27001, the international standard for information security management, so our practices are independently audited and continually refined.
We didn't wait for the AI era to build resilient systems. We've been monitoring, measuring and improving our defences for years.
No hosting provider can promise a site will never face a security issue, and we won't either. What we can do is reduce the risk, spot problems early and act quickly when something happens.
Meeting the new normal
We're responding with increased investment in defensive technology and in how we contain and respond to threats. Our aim is to stay ahead of the people trying to get in, so our clients can get on with running their business.
We’re widely known as Umbraco specialists, but our managed hosting and support services extend far beyond a single platform.
We have the capability, experience, and infrastructure to securely host and maintain a wide range of website and web app technologies, and our doors are open to all enquiries.
We make our living doing the hard stuff, so you don't have to.