Using the Content Match feature to detect website defacement

The Content Match feature

This has the potential to detect and protect against page defacement, as well as fulfilling a few other handy use-cases. Today we’re going to take you through a few of the most common uses of this feature to help you ensure you are getting the most out of it!

Website defacement is a major issue for webmasters worldwide, it’s generally defined as one or more unauthorized changes to a web page, usually resultant of a malicious attack from an outside source. Types of defacement can range from things you’d notice right away – such as an entire page being replaced with a message from the attacker, but in other instances, it can be something harder to spot, like a single link being changed to point to a different destination.

One example would be the modification of a link on the page that directs your users to a payment system – something that could have a big impact on the trust your users have for your website or service. You might think that the size of the website affects the probability of it being hacked in this way, however, the passage of time has shown us that both large and small companies are at risk. Thousands of privately owned WordPress blogs that are defaced per year, to much bigger companies like Vogue, Lenovo and Reddit and many more who have had their fair share of such issues.

This might sound alarming! But fear not – StatusCake is here to help. You can use our Content Match feature to quickly detect the removal of desired content from your pages, making it easy to address this before your user base begins to notice. It’s as simple as configuring one or more critical strings that should be present at all times within your page source, our software does the rest and will alert you if there are any changes in what you have defined.

You’ll find the option you need to configure this under “String Match” in the settings for your StatusCake test, simply enter your data into this field to get going, you can read a little more about how this feature works here.