An online presence is an important part of many small business’s marketing plan, creating visibility and most importantly, supporting positive customer interactions and drawing business. For a country bakery hit in an April Fool’s day cyber attack, that was all lost.

However, in a cyber attack that hit an estimated 500 million accounts worldwide and seven million in Australia, Bodalla Bakery owner Sharan Callender lost her business page’s followers, images and interactions, dating back 14 years.

According to their Facebook and Instagram feed, the bakery had moved from the small NSW coastal town to Hanoi, Vietnam.

A Facebook error meant account information held by the social media giant was made available on a hacking forum—information that included names, phone numbers, email addresses, account IDs and bios.

Sharan told Region Media that it was like the bakery no longer existed.

“It leaves you feeling very vulnerable as it made our business look like we were the fraud,” she said.

“We didn’t know what to do and how to recover what we’d lost as Facebook just takes you around in circles. It is pretty much impossible to speak with them.”

As the Bodalla Bakery team work on rebuilding their social media presence from scratch, she said it has been a valuable lesson in cyber security.

“We’re upgrading the security on our website to a much higher level. We thought we were safe but this has really exposed how vulnerable you can be.”