The Hero’s Journey in Cybersecurity

It’s about your Call to Adventure, the Death & Rebirth, and Transformation of your business.

It’s also about how you can “cheat” and skip the death and rebirth phase and go directly to the transformation. A painless and definitely, cheaper transformation.

Your story has a similar beginning to many others… 

Call to Adventure

You got a call, an ambition, an idea, a vision. You create, be it snowboard jackets or pink unicorn socks, you make your vision a reality. To the delight of your customers you sell online. You know your environment well, the market, audience, product...

Which mug is the top seller for people between 35-40 and fans of Game of Thrones? You know the answer immediately (spoiler alert - it’s Tyrion). How many page sessions do you get for that top gaming laptop with the red mechanical keyboard? Yep. You got it. How does your page for The Goonies Smart Home Hub compares to your direct competitors? Right again… I think you get what I mean. By the way, you got a slick brand.

You’re the hero who delivers products and services we need and crave.

This is a familiar, well known environment… but you’re now entering a dimension you might not even know is dangerous.

Welcome to the interwebs internet with its colossal share of bad guys.

Threshold - Suspicious activities

All is good and well. However… you, our hero, start to see some strange activities on your website. It’s slower than normal. Some days it’s getting massive amounts of sessions.

Hey! This is weird, your admin panel is getting access requests from a foreign country yet all your staff are employed locally.

You start to suspect your website might have been hacked.

The Mentor

During this period of suspicion, you’ve met many people that were willing to help you. Forensics companies, cybersecurity vendors and consultants. People and companies that have shared information and helped you educate yourself in cybersecurity.

You learned a lot about website security, things like changing the password to the admin panel quite often, changing the admin page path, patching and WAF (?!). What the hell is a WAF?

You feel more confident, knowledgeable and certain your business will thrive even more.

The Temptation

You’re now monitoring and logging your website activity. Things look bright. And then...

You’re tempted by insecure thoughts for the first time.

This is easy. Shall I try to take care of my website security by myself?

For the second time.

I know how to get PCI compliant so maybe I’m safe?

You’re tempted for the third time.

Do I really need that website security solution?

The Abyss - Death & Rebirth - You’ve been hacked!

You never forget your first time… and believe us, it’s never pleasant. You thought your website was somewhat protected, you got SSL because everyone told you to (yeah, that will protect you), chose the most expensive plan on your eCommerce platform, hired a web dev dude.

Although these are good steps, it doesn’t really protect your website, and now you know.

This is the tough phase… you’re going through a PFI (Payment Card Industry Forensic Investigation), if you’re in Europe you might go through a PFI Lite, and it costs money. We’re talking about at least £2,000 and I’m not even counting the card brand fees.

You lost your spot on Google Search, you might even have been removed all together.

Most heroes die in this part to never come back.

But you didn’t! You persevered… you went through the investigation, the liability and card fees, apologies to your customers, used new marketing and SEO tactics to get better ranked. You and your business are alive, brother.

The Transformation

You might have been uninformed, unaware that you could be a target, stubborn, or even, let’s face it, lazy, or penny-pinching. Maybe all of those, but don’t worry, we’re not here to judge.

The fact is, you got hacked, lost customer data and might even have lost your most precious asset... your brand credibility. But... you survived this rough and horrible phase.

A pledge is made to your customers, you’ll never let them down ever again. No customer data loss, no downtime, no more apologetic emails stating how sorry you are for being hacked.

You’ve now transformed to a cyber aware company… with a website security solution in place. With whichever solution you decided to use, let's say FGX-Web, you now proactively monitor and log website activity, receive automated alerts for suspicious behaviours in your website, block 99.9% of online threats and might even have evolved to a Legendary Super Saiyan by signing up to Managed Service - meaning you can focus solely on your business while your website security is managed for you.

The Return

You, our hero, have gone through one hell of a journey. You accepted the call to adventure, faced the challenges, temptations and even death, but you were reborn, stronger and wiser. You now understand the consequence of a breach, especially the costs, how you could have prevented it and how important it’s to be protected against online threats.

You chose your ‘magic weapon’ and are now solely focused on growing your business. You have finally found peace of mind.

A Hero’s Truth

The reality is, you don’t have to embark on this adventure to reach The Return stage. You can easily learn from other companies’ stories. From big banks, airlines to apps being breached every single day.

The stories and indicators are all out there. Here are just three 2019 stats (scary stuff!):

• There is a hacker attack every 39 seconds
• Hackers steal 75 records every second
• Hackers create 300,000 new pieces of malware daily

If you’re not even worried. Congrats, you’re up there with Daredevil as the person without fear.

For everyone else. Fret not! You don’t have to go through the pain of a breach. That’s a fact!

The Pitch

Here’s our suggestion. Follow the steps below and go from Call to Adventure, to Mentor to Transformation.

• Scan your website for external vulnerability at foregenix.com/webscan (it’s free with no catch)
• Get in touch with us at hello@foregenix.com or call us - we’ll give you the best advice to secure your website
• FGX-Web - Start Monitoring and Protecting your website

We’ll do everything we can to secure your website. A mix of powerful and advanced technology with years of Forensic and Incident Response knowledge. And, in the unlikely scenario of you getting breached, FGX-Web comes with a warranty up to £50,000 to cover any PFI related costs.

The End

Truth be told, most people don’t think they’re a target (sometimes because they deem themselves ‘too small’), that being breached is cheaper than having to pay for a website security solution or they’re really not aware of the impact a breach could have on their business.

Don’t be that guy. Get your website secure today. Get peace of mind without going through the pain.

This blog post was loosely based on The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.