Website Security Service

Without a firewall, a WordPress website becomes an open target for a spectrum of cyber threats. For example, brute force attacks—where hackers attempt to crack passwords by trying thousands of combinations—occur at an alarming rate, with WordPress reporting over 90,000 such attacks every minute worldwide. Vulnerabilities in plugins and themes are routinely exploited as well; in 2023 alone, over 4,000 new plugin vulnerabilities were catalogued, accounting for nearly 90% of known WordPress security breaches.

Malware infections, such as the notorious WP-VCD and Pharma hacks, can silently inject malicious code into your site, redirecting your visitors to spam or phishing pages and causing your domain to be blacklisted by search engines. According to Sophos, an average malware infection can remain undetected for over 200 days, increasing the risk of data exfiltration and reputational harm.

Denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are another critical threat, where attackers flood your website with a massive volume of traffic, overwhelming your server and forcing your site offline. In 2022, the largest recorded DDoS attack reached 71 million requests per second, demonstrating the scale and sophistication of these campaigns.

The consequences are severe: downtime can cost a small business up to £7,000 per hour, while recovery from a data breach averages £120,000 in expenses for UK SMEs. Even more troubling, 60% of small companies that suffer a major attack go out of business within six months.

These facts underscore the urgent need for robust, layered security—without it, the risks to data integrity, customer trust, and business continuity are greater than ever.