In this article, we will look into the various WordPress Firewall Security aspects. Before going to get insight, look at some stats and why WordPress is vulnerable to attack.
As of November 2017, WordPress has only solidified its reputation as the most popular website platform throughout the whole Internet.
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WordPress Statistics
According to statistics by CodeinWP.com, around 15.8 million websites on the entire web uses WordPress, with 50% of users in the United States preferring it even way back 2014. This means that WordPress runs about 28.9% of the entire Internet. 14.7% of the top 100 websites in the world are powered by this platform.
Even some of the most reputable and well-known websites are based on WordPress. These include the New York Observer, New York Post, TED, Thought Catalog, Williams, USA Today, CNN, Fortune.com, Time.com, National Post, Spotify, TechCrunch, CBS Local, NBC, and more.
In the global CMS market, WordPress has about 50-60% share. This makes it the most popular CMS for the 7th year in a row. It is also the most popular to use for business websites.
Why Most of Us Choose WordPress?
Due to the widespread use of WordPress, the development team behind this platform has developed themes, versions, plugins, and many more features. These are designed to augment the experience to the fullest.
This has made WordPress such a versatile tool for virtually any sort of website needs of its users. You can build any type of website using WordPress- from personal websites, business websites, eCommerce-powered platforms, blogs, etc.
As an example, the popular blog/content website Thought Catalog is significantly different from the music streaming platform Spotify, yet both are powered by WordPress.
This flexibility is one of the major factors why people seem to prefer this platform a lot.
Why WordPress Security is the Biggest Concern?
Despite the popularity of WordPress and the multitude of versions and plugins that were all designed to uphold the security of the websites at all times, 73% of WordPress sites still remain vulnerable to attacks.
In the coming year, we will be witnessing serious Cybersecurity challenges and opportunities for cyber experts.
Most Possible Reason for WordPress Vulnerability and Attack:
There are many reasons for this vulnerability.
Outdated versions of the base WordPress and of its plugins can potentially put a website at risk. It is easier to infiltrate especially by newer methods of attacks. But sometimes, even updating your current WordPress version or the plugins and themes you have may not be enough.
2017 Internet World was stunned by the biggest Ransomware attack. And we have shared some of the tips to avoid Ransomware attack and to prevent yourself from getting into trouble.
You can check the 10 Most Common Security Attacks Kills Your WordPress Blog. [It includes infographic so you can understand it easily.]
In addition to this, make sure that you are always using the newest version of everything, you are using. It pays to have a WordPress firewall up to add another layer of protection on your website, especially if it contains sensitive information about you, your business, and/or your clientele.
This is imperative as you not only will face severe consequences following the attack that will affect your business internally but can also result in legal disputes when your clientele becomes heavily involved. Not to mention that this may become a PR disaster waiting to happen.
A good example of what can happen when your website is not protected well enough is seen with Yahoo! email fiasco of 2013. It was revealed that ALL emails that were created on or before August 2013 were compromised due to a security breach in their system and that three billion accounts were exposed.
This caused significant panic and frustration among Yahoo! Mail users and required the Yahoo! team to correct this incident as early as possible. Not something you’d want to happen to your website, of course.
How to Deal with WordPress Firewall Security?
Aside from protecting your website against potential attacks, a WordPress firewall also provides your website extra tools such as malware scanning, search engine blacklist checking, and uptime monitoring. These all can alert you when there are harmful elements that are trying to apply unauthorized and potentially invasive changes to your site.
Since they run first before any other code that your website executes, firewalls ensure that bad requests are filtered out, no matter where they may have come from, as the firewall has built up security even before they can load.
Related Read: How To Protect Integrity Of Responsive WordPress Theme?
If you are holding the WordPress website and have any questions related to WordPress Firewall Security, you can ask by commenting below.
Editor’s Note: Mike Jones has written and shared this article.