Hacking Attacks Work

Hacking attacks can have detrimental effects on the victim. These effects vary according to the type of attack the hacker launched and what the target of their attack is. Unfortunately for many Web Sites, there are multiple ways to exploit them.
Malware that infects desktop computers can reveal administrator credentials or FTP credentials. These credentials can then be used to access the web site, web server, and even other resources on a companies network.
Vulnerabilities in the server operating system can provide a hacker access to the files that make up the web site. The web site can then serve spam or malicious files to innocent visitors. Sites that are found to do this, even if they are not aware, can be flagged as malicious by the search engines and even removed from the Search Engine Results Page.
Web applications that power dynamic web sites present multiple ways for an attacker to exploit a site and connect to the web site’s data base. Data bases that contain financial or personal information can then be farmed to later be used for credit card fraud or identity theft.
Denial of Service attacks can cause a disruption in web services. If any essential business processes are run over the Internet, these can cease to function as well