Cyberattacks devastated my business!

From a small startup that was hacked by Anonymous to a cleaning firm that fell prey to a Nigerian scam, these five small businesses explain how cyberattacks hurt their firms.

Cyberattack took down website

cyber attack crenerds eric counts
An attack forced Eric Counts to rebuild his e-commerce credit counseling business CreditNerds.com.
  • Company: CreditNerds.com

Eric Counts' customers first alerted him that his website had been attacked in early April.

"Basically one day I received a huge number of phone calls from people saying that they were getting warning alerts about my site when they were trying to access it," he said.

Malware had infected his website, CreditNerds.com, which helps consumers repair and improve their credit. The malicious code quickly spread to every page.

Although his clients' information, including their dates of birth and Social Security numbers, wasn't compromised, Counts decided to take down the website anyway, opting to change his website hosting provider. He spent $3,500 rebuilding the site.

"My clients were worried about identity theft," he said.

Before the attack, his five-year-old business was getting 10 to 15 new customers a week. That dropped to zero in the 10 days that he was dealing with the attack. He estimates that the cyberattack cost him about $9,000 in lost revenue.

"We're OK," said Counts. "At most, I've gone a couple of weeks without pay. We're lucky it wasn't worse."

  @CNNMoney - Last updated May 29 2013 07:46 AM ET

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