They’ll Hack You, Lock You Out, and Charge You for It
How Small Businesses, Including Vacation Rentals and B&Bs, Get Screwed Every Day
Forty-three percent of all cyberattacks target small businesses. That’s almost half. And yet most owners think it won’t happen to them. Until it does.
I know because it happened to me. Back in the 1990s, when I launched my first vacation rental service, a so-called “friend” who built my website ended up holding my database hostage. His demand? A percentage of my business in exchange for what was already mine. That was my first brutal lesson in how quickly trust can turn into leverage.
Fast forward to today. A property management company I know tried to move their marketing to a new agency. The hosting firm they’d been with for 8 years retaliated by locking them out of their Google Ads account. Eight years of loyalty, wiped out in a power play.
The predators in plain sight
Exploitative hosts cut corners on security, skip basics like SSL and DMARC, and then act like it’s your fault when hackers slip in. Some people deliberately keep admin rights to your site or domain, preventing you from l…