If you log into your law firm website and see an icon in the top left of the website address that says “Not Secure,” this indicates that your security certificate has expired. What does this mean? Well, at the risk of being alarmist, it’s not great.
This presents three major problems for a lawyer’s website.
1. Google penalizes sites that are not secure, so It is very bad for your law firm’s SEO
2. This immediately notifies visitors that your website may not be safe, which reflect poorly on your firm and its brand.
3. It means that your site could be compromised by hackers, making it unsafe for your business and putting the data of visitors to your site a risk.
If SEO is important to your firm’s strategy, then the first point presents a serious issue. Google penalizes websites that are not secure. This means that your website will not rank as well as it could in search results which should be extremely important for most law firms.
Web browsers, including Google Chrome, display a “Not Secure” label in the URL address bar warning users when a website security does not meet Google’s minimum standards. This is done to warn website visitors before they go any further on your site. In other words, the warning tells visitors to leave your site. The effect is that such a warning will reduce website traffic, and can easily undermine confidence in your business. This ultimately damages the credibility of your law firm.
Google is currently going to great lengths to ensure that the internet more secure for all of its users. This makes sense, because its entire business model is predicated on trust and the belief that it will recommend the best sites that reflect a user’s search intent. The search giant has stated that it plans to continue rolling out new security indicators as often as possible. This means that these kinds of warnings are going to become more obvious to your website visitors. Any website missing a properly installed SSL certificate will be flagged.
So what’s the risk? Well, topping the list, when a connection to your website site is not encrypted, hackers can access sensitive information such as passwords or credit card details. But they can also track your visitors, pirate your site, and set up sham businesses on your URL.
Here are some of the risks you face if your security is not up to date:
MITM Attack: MITM stands for Man-In-The-Middle. An attack of this type relays and alters communication between you and your customers. Since your website does not have an SSL certificate, all the communications traveling from one web server to another web server is not encrypted. It becomes easy for attackers to access and alter unsecured communications.
A Phishing Attacks Impersonating Your Website: With SSL certificates easily available, a “look-a-like” domain owners can impersonate your website. Any website not verified and secured can leave the door wide open for a criminal hacker to impersonate you and collect data or defraud your customers.
Confidential Data Leakage: Almost all the websites on internet accepts some sort of customer information and pass it to the database servers. In the absence of an SSL certificate, communications are not encrypted. This means that attackers have access to any data stored on your server. This includes simple login or registration details, feedback data, and most importantly, credit card detail. But hackers can also track your visitors once they leave your site.
Any of these issues outline above can cause your law firm’s brand irreparable damage online and offline. The ultimate risk is that your competitors take business advantage of your non-secure website and win your prospective clients by the simple act of looking like they are more legitimate and aware.
The good news is that the fix is easy, so there is really no reason to put this off. Need help? Please reach out.