A Shifting Security Mindset

In the business world, cybersecurity has traditionally been viewed as a nice-to-have, rather than a mission-critical, organization-wide imperative. Transformation and growth simply haven’t shared the same conversation space as threat protection, privacy threats, and data breaches.

In recent years, however, companies have begun to realize just how vulnerable they really are, and that they can no longer get by with simply fine-tuning existing security protocols and infrastructure as they innovate and modernize products and services. The growing intensity, sophistication, and volume of cyber attacks require businesses to integrate security into their larger business plans or face an uncertain future.

Reclaiming the Security Narrative

The World Economic Forum reports that “cyber-attacks and data integrity concerns crippling large parts of the internet” are among the top ten global risks of 2019. This isn’t just because these threats are growing in number, it’s because they’re growing in resilience. For example, when an organization’s security infrastructure is improved due to a recent threat, bad actors are already hard at work, building, testing, and perfecting new methods of intrusion. This is particularly true of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, an effective and damaging type of cyberattack in which an attacker attempts to take down a web site or even an entire corporate network by flooding it with malicious traffic.

This increasingly escalating game of cat-and-mouse is expensive, exhausting, and inhibitive. It also allows for the speed of innovation and the narrative on new-age security technologies to be dictated by the bad actors themselves. A reactive approach to security is therefore not sustainable. To gain and sustain a competitive advantage in the marketplace, organizations must establish a mutually-beneficial relationship between security and innovation.

More Trust, Less Walls

Operating in the cloud allows for a greater distribution of data and the opportunity to integrate with best-in-class technologies. Threats to cloud infrastructure, however, are morphing and multi-faceted. These attacks aren’t new but the number of devices that are Internet-facing and therefore vulnerable is increasing which only heightens an organization’s vulnerability. Companies of all sizes continue to lean into the Internet of Things, which means security should be a top-of-mind priority for businesses of all sizes. Maintaining a static set of security protocol in an attempt to secure your website is not the answer.

Even as companies increase their risk, they can also increase their ability to mitigate it. Organizations have to harden their infrastructure and incorporate processes that continuously check applications for vulnerabilities. The scalability and agility of cloud services will benefit your website’s security just as it benefits your servers. The result is therefore minimized risk without inhibiting productivity. This helps facilitate trust with your customer base and allows you to stay focused on your business rather than reacting to the devastating effects of a security breach.

Be Proactive with Global Edge Security

WP Engine is committed to making sure you’re not playing a catch-up game when it comes to security. As WordPress experts, we’ve created a finely-tuned solution that uses specific rulesets to outsmart the evolving threat landscape that is targeting WordPress sites.

Global Edge Security (GES) is a high-powered security solution that offers enterprise-grade network edge security built specifically to secure your WordPress site. GES comes with DDoS protection and a Web Application Firewall (WAF) with built-in expert rule sets from Cloudflare to automatically protect you against new and emerging threats. The approach is multifaceted and works to harden security at the edge while adding strategic layers of security where you’re most vulnerable.

Now, Global Edge Security is available for all WP Engine plan types. Here’s how GES works to protect your site’s integrity and your overall revenue:

• Enterprise-grade threat detection and prevention: Equipped with a Web Application Firewall (WAF), attacks are stopped at the edge-before they reach your servers. The WAF exposes application-level vulnerabilities, inspects traffic for signs of XSS or SQL injections, and is automatically updated to more efficiently respond to emerging threats.
• Next-level DDoS protection: GES infrastructure scales to address the growing size of DDoS attacks. The layered technology uses automatic detection and mitigation to protect you from botnets, volumetric attacks targeting web servers, firewalls, load balancers to disrupt and overwhelm connections, and application layer attacks that establish a connection to compromise transactions or aspects of the application.
• Safe and secure data: Traffic is inspected by the Cloudflare global network for SSL/TLS encryptions to prevent unwanted breaches. This encryption prevents sites from receiving the “not secure” label per Chrome v.68 updates. The encrypted content safeguards your data by preventing data transfer between you and your site visitors.
• Speed is never compromised: All traffic is sent through a network of 151 data centers to accelerate security and site performance; the CDN also provides heightened resilience during high traffic events or network congestion for a dynamic and more consistent experience.

Today, evolving security threats have made security a priority for every organization, regardless of size. Taking concrete steps to prevent and mitigate security risks to your business is no longer an “added cost,” it’s become a strategic investment in defense and protection from mission-critical threats. No security plan can prevent 100% of today’s cyber attacks, but securing your site against the most common threats and intrusion methods is a huge step in the right direction.

Learn More About Global Edge Security

Global Edge Security is now available for all plan types. For more information about the product and pricing or to find out if GES is suitable for your site, visit our Global Edge Security page.