The Real Cost of Ignoring Website Security

The average cost of a cyberattack on a small business is estimated at thousands of pounds. But the real cost is not the attack itself. It is the lost customers, damaged reputation, regulatory fines, and recovery time.

Direct costs

Cleaning a hacked WordPress site: £200-500. Forensic analysis to find the breach: £500-2000. Notifying affected customers (required under GDPR): time and reputation. ICO fines for inadequate security: up to £17.5 million (though small businesses typically face lower amounts).

Indirect costs

Google blacklisting your site: immediate loss of all organic traffic. Customer trust: once broken, extremely difficult to rebuild. Downtime: every hour your site is down costs revenue and credibility.

Prevention costs almost nothing

Security headers: free to add. HTTPS: free with Let us Encrypt. Strong passwords: free. Regular updates: free. The gap between “vulnerable” and “protected” is usually a few hours of work.

LaunchKitty checks all seven security headers, HTTPS, and server configuration. For £39, you get a complete security audit with specific instructions for fixing every vulnerability we find.