Website security should be a top priority for everyone. We must do everything we can to keep our data and users safe, as the potential consequences of not doing so are massive.
While securing WordPress often focuses on the actions of developers and users, the critical role of web hosting is sometimes overlooked.
A secure web hosting environment is a vital part of the equation. It covers threats that even the most experienced developers can’t always thwart. This provides peace of mind because you know your host is keeping watch.
This article examines the role web hosting plays in security, explores WordPress’s unique needs, and identifies areas where hosting makes an impact.
Let’s get started!
What makes WordPress security different?
WordPress powers many websites, from brochure sites to enterprise applications. Its flexibility is a significant advantage, but it also presents unique security challenges.
Let’s take a deeper look at why securing WordPress is different:
WordPress is popular and powers high-profile websites
WordPress is the market leader among content management systems (CMS). It powers many large governmental, institutional, and corporate sites, such as Harvard University, Meta, NASA, the White House, and TIME. These high-profile sites make WordPress a prime target for hackers and attacks.
Hackers train malicious bots to sniff out WordPress installations and look for weaknesses, such as known vulnerabilities, weak passwords, and server security holes. They also use DDoS attacks to disrupt site availability, spread malware, and deface the site’s front end. The attacks are constant — even on small websites. This makes securing WordPress a 24/7 job.
A complex ecosystem of themes and plugins
No two WordPress websites are the same due to the endless combinations of themes and plugins. This diversity is both a strength and a weakness.
For example, you might choose a popular plugin for added functionality, but if it’s poorly maintained or abandoned, it can introduce vulnerabilities that compromise site security.
Even well-maintained software can have unnoticed flaws, making regular updates and vigilance crucial. Think of it like maintaining a house: even the sturdiest structure needs regular checks and maintenance to ensure no weak spots develop over time.
Security flaws in WordPress core
Security flaws can also originate from the WordPress core. Fixes are often released quickly and applied via automatic updates, but not everyone has automatic updates enabled on their site.
One built-in feature that poses some risk is XML-RPC. While it has legitimate uses, like allowing communication between WordPress and outside systems, hackers can exploit it to launch DDoS and brute-force attacks. Despite being a legacy technology, XML-RPC is still active on many WordPress websites, making automated attacks against it common.
Frequent updates and vulnerability patching
WordPress frequently releases updates for its core, and developers regularly update their themes and plugins to address security vulnerabilities and introduce new features. This rapid update cycle is essential for minimizing risks. However, these updates are only effective if applied immediately.
Site owners must stay vigilant and promptly apply updates, as delaying can leave your site vulnerable to known threats. WordPress introduced automatic core updates some years ago, so most sites automatically apply minor security and maintenance releases. Some sites also apply major updates, which isn’t usually enabled by default.
Even automatic updates carry some risks. If a plugin is compromised, automatically applying updates could install malicious code. Therefore, it’s important to regularly review plugins and ensure you’re using trusted plugins from reputable developers.
Several vectors of attack
There’s more than one way to hack a WordPress site, and much depends on the weakest link in your security setup. Both hackers and their tools are smart enough to find and exploit it.
Among the most common vectors of attack are:
- Brute force attacks — Attempt to gain unauthorized access by repeatedly trying different username and password combinations.
- Compromised passwords — Weak or previously exposed passwords can allow hackers to take control of your site.
- Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) — Tricks authenticated users into performing unintended actions by submitting a malicious request.
- Cross-site scripting (XSS) — Malicious code injected into your site can spread malware, often through plugins that don’t sanitize input correctly.
- Database injections — Hackers can access user data and inject malicious code into your site’s content through a compromised database.
- DDoS — Flood your website with traffic to slow or bring it down entirely.
- Reverse shell attacks — Exploit vulnerabilities to install a reverse shell, allowing hackers to interact with the server’s operating system and your WordPress install.
How your web host impacts WordPress security
WordPress security is a complex puzzle, and web hosting is the first piece. Hosts that don’t cater to WordPress leave the door open for bad things to happen. Here’s how hosting makes the biggest impact on your site’s security:
Cheap hosting likely means less security
We all love a bargain. But sometimes, we get more than we bargained for. Cheap web hosting may sound like a good idea. However, it’s fair to ask why the price is so low. Are they cutting corners?
Security is often sacrificed. Hosting providers may not invest in newer technologies that minimize risk. From a financial perspective, this makes sense, but top-notch security is expensive. Therefore, it’s nearly impossible to provide both cheap and highly secure services.
That’s a problem for the rest of us. Cleaning up a hacked website takes time and money, and cheap hosting means you’ll spend more on both in the long run.
For example, I’ve dealt with budget hosts before and faced persistent issues. I cleaned up malware infections multiple times, only to see them return within months. Replacing every file on the site didn’t help either; the infection always came back. This was a frustrating and time-consuming experience. The higher initial cost of a quality host would have been a better investment.
This is why ensuring your site’s security should be a top priority if it is important to you, your business, your organization, your institution, or your government. Investigate quality premium hosts—although they may not be cheap, they offer superior security measures and support. Often, you can negotiate with the sales team and secure a good long-term deal with discounts, avoiding multiple security issues, downtimes, and poor customer support.
For example, investing in quality hosting like Kinsta means you’ll have prompt support, premium security infrastructure, and a more stable, reliable site. In the long run, this will save you money, time, and the frustration of dealing with recurring issues.
The types of traffic allowed to visit your site
Not all bot traffic is welcome. Some are looking to wreak havoc. Unfortunately, an insecure web host will struggle to tell the difference.
Allowing a malicious bot to gain entry is the first step in being hacked. It could try a brute-force attack or sniff around for a vulnerable plugin—that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
For instance, hosting your site on a budget provider that doesn’t filter traffic effectively will allow malicious bots to flood your server, causing slowdowns and occasional downtime. The host’s inadequate security measures will allow these bots to try brute-force attacks and exploit known vulnerabilities persistently.
Blocking suspicious traffic is the best way to defend against hackers. Hosts that employ a web application firewall (WAF) can prevent these bots from reaching your site. A WAF acts as a shield, analyzing incoming traffic and blocking any suspicious activity before it can harm.
If your site is hosted on Kinsta, you don’t have to worry about setting up a WAF manually. All sites on our infrastructure are automatically protected by our free Cloudflare integration, which includes a secure firewall with custom rulesets and free DDoS protection. This integration ensures that malicious bots are blocked before they can even attempt an attack.
In addition to our Cloudflare integration, we implement other security measures, such as brute force detection, SFTP-only file access, and a comprehensive malware removal pledge. These layers of protection ensure that your site remains secure so you can focus on running your business without the constant worry of security breaches.
The cross-contamination of WordPress installs
Think of WordPress malware like a traditional computer virus. Infections can spread quickly and without warning. This is a big problem in some shared hosting environments, where a single point of infection can impact other sites on the server.
For example, imagine you have multiple sites hosted on a shared server. If one site gets infected, that infection can spread to all the other sites on the same server. Cleaning up a cross-contaminated account can be nearly impossible. First, you’ll need to find the source of the infection. Once you eradicate that problem, you’ll have to clean up your other sites. It’s not for the faint of heart.
The use of isolated software containers can stop malware in its tracks. They defend against infections and prevent them from spreading to other sites. Each site operates independently, with no shared hardware or software resources.
If your site is hosted with Kinsta, you benefit from 100% isolated environments. Each site runs in its own isolated software container, ensuring complete privacy and security. Linux containers provide the necessary resources to run each site independently.
Additionally, there are several WordPress security plugins you can use to help protect your site in case of malware. Kinsta also offers a security guarantee for all websites hosted with us, including free malware removal from your WordPress site.
The importance of regular site backups
Maintaining high-quality site backups is a crucial part of security. A backup is a lifesaver if your site becomes compromised, allowing you to roll back to a previous version at any time. However, not all backups are created equal. An old or corrupted site backup won’t help you, and discovering this too late can be disastrous.
For instance, consider a scenario where your site gets hacked, and you need to restore it to a previous state. If your backup is outdated or corrupted, you cannot recover your site effectively, resulting in potential data loss and downtime.
Numerous WordPress plugins, both free and paid, offer backup solutions. These plugins can be helpful, but relying solely on them may not be the most secure option. A hosting solution that handles backups can provide a more integrated and reliable approach, ensuring your data is consistently protected without additional setup or maintenance.
At Kinsta, we offer multiple site backup options to ensure your data is always safe. We provide automatic and manual site backups, giving you flexibility and control. For mission-critical sites, we offer an hourly backup add-on, ensuring that even the most recent changes are preserved.
In addition to regular backups, we use system-generated backups to protect you during critical tasks. These include theme and plugin updates, pushing from staging to live, performing search and replace operations and site resets. This ensures you always have a recent backup to revert to if anything goes wrong during these operations.
Proactive site monitoring
Do you know how your website is doing? Is it running smoothly or suffering from a problem? Site monitoring helps you stay on top of your site’s status, ensuring that you can quickly address any issues that arise.
There are several WordPress plugins available that offer site monitoring features, helping you track uptime, performance, and potential errors. These tools can send alerts if they detect any problems, allowing you to take action before they impact your users.
For example, a plugin like Jetpack can provide basic monitoring services. However, integrating monitoring directly with your hosting provider can offer more comprehensive and seamless protection. Some premium hosting providers, like Kinsta, offer advanced monitoring solutions. Kinsta’s uptime monitoring performs checks every three minutes. If an error is detected in three consecutive checks, an email alert is sent to notify you of the issue.
Additionally, tools like the free Kinsta APM (Application Performance Monitoring) empower you to monitor site performance and identify issues yourself, providing detailed insights that help you keep your site running smoothly.
Data encryption
Encryption protects the data shared between users and your website, ensuring that hackers can’t access sensitive information like passwords or private communications. Implementing strong encryption measures is essential for maintaining security.
While services like Cloudflare offer SSL certificates to secure data transmission, setting up these solutions can involve additional steps, such as exchanging nameservers. To simplify this process, some hosting providers integrate encryption features directly into their services.
At Kinsta, we provide robust encryption features without the need for complicated setups. Our Cloudflare integration automatically protects all verified domains, including free SSL certificates with domain wildcard support. This ensures that all data transferred between your users and your website is encrypted.
Additionally, we ban all unencrypted connections to our servers, allowing only encrypted connections via SSH and SFTP.
Why security plugins aren’t enough
Installing a security plugin is one way to take things into your own hands. Doing so provides a sense of control, and there’s nothing wrong with being proactive. These plugins can make a positive impact on security. However, they also have a fundamental problem: they don’t work at the server level.
Security plugins don’t start working until an attacker has already visited your website. Even if they block a bot, it may have had multiple opportunities to do damage, impacting site performance and increasing risk. Moreover, hackers are designing malware specifically to evade plugins. A malicious file could avoid detection or even deactivate the plugin altogether.
For example, imagine a scenario where a bot accesses your site, attempting to exploit vulnerabilities. A security plugin might eventually block the bot, but not before it has attempted several attacks, potentially slowing down your site and probing for weaknesses. Additionally, sophisticated malware could bypass the plugin’s defenses or disable it, leaving your site vulnerable.
Therefore, it’s better to catch potential issues at the server level before they even reach your website. Hosting providers that integrate security measures at the server level can offer more comprehensive protection.
At Kinsta, we have the infrastructure and features to catch what security plugins can’t. Our hosting environment includes features like:
- Web application firewall (WAF) — This helps block malicious traffic before it reaches your site.
- DDoS protection — Protects your site from being overwhelmed by malicious traffic.
- Brute force detection — Identifies and mitigates attempts to gain unauthorized access.
- Malware scanning and removal — Regularly scans for and removes malware, ensuring your site remains clean and secure.
- Isolated software containers — Prevent cross-contamination between sites on the same server.
By addressing security at the server level, Kinsta provides a more robust defense against attacks, ensuring your site remains secure and performs optimally. This comprehensive approach to security gives you peace of mind, knowing that your site is protected against threats that plugins alone can’t handle.
Summary
Securing your website requires a multipronged approach. Choosing a security-focused web host is a big part of this process.
A secure host will provide you with the right tools and technologies. They understand the needs of WordPress and its ecosystem and will work behind the scenes to thwart attackers.
Hackers don’t rest – and neither should your web host. Now that you know the impact hosting can make, choose wisely!
Want to talk about web security? Our experts are happy to answer your questions.
