A CHILDREN'S party organiser says she lost up to 60% of her takings after being targeted by online hackers.
Helen Thomas, 36, was earning up to £400 a month by running birthday parties for kids.
But a sudden drop in bookings prompted the Alvaston mum to make inquiries – and she found her website could no longer be accessed via search engines such as Google.
Although her website still came up on the search results, those who clicked on it were automatically diverted to a different site.
Helen said the problem had gone unnoticed for weeks and, as a result, estimated she lost about £200 worth of business.
The mum-of-three said: "On average, I do six parties a month. But because of this problem, I've got nothing booked in for the whole of June and this month I've only got two bookings.
"I've effectively lost 50-60% of my normal monthly takings so I feel quite cross.
"To me, it's a lot of money. I'm just a small business and so the bit of money I do lose is quite a lot to me.
"I'm really shocked this has happened. I didn't realise this sort of thing was possible.
Helen said a friend who runs her website – called 'childrenspartiesderby.co.uk' – worked with technicians at Google to resolve the matter.
She said: "It was only when there was a drop in bookings that I thought there was a problem.
"My friend who runs the website looked into it and found my business was no longer coming up on the first page of Google when a search is made.
"Instead, it was coming up on the second page and when you clicked on the site, my information wasn't coming up.
"My friend contacted Google and their hosting department said something had happened to the server.
"From the records, it looks like the website was taken over on January 25.
"The reason I didn't notice at first is because I don't use search engines to get onto my website. Instead I just type in the website address.
"When we found out the website had been taken over, I didn't know what to do and neither did my friend.
"He said he had never known this sort of thing to happen before."
Helen said she had tried to find out who was behind the hack but that no trace was left.
She added: "The website that came up instead of mine had no name or contact details on it so I still don't know who was behind this happening.
"All we can do is make sure my website is more secure so this sort of thing doesn't happen again."
Helen said she contacted the Derby Telegraph to make others aware of what can happen.
She said: "It's taught me about the importance of having a secure website.
"This sort of thing may be going on without people noticing."
