Is your website under threat? Recent years have seen web attacks explode at an alarming rate. Millions of sites get hacked, damaged or taken offline – costing untold sums.
Just look at some high-profile cases:
- 2021 – A Cloudflare outage knocked major sites like Discord, Doordash and Peloton offline for over 30 minutes
- 2022 – Over 200,000 WordPress sites hacked via vulnerabilities in themes and plugins
These are just the tip of the iceberg. The reality is over 50% of websites contain security risks making them prime targets according to noted analysts Sucuri.
The impacts of getting hit go far beyond embarrassment or short-term cleanup costs too…
- Permanent loss of organic search rankings
- Long term reputational damage
- Loss of customer trust and sales
- Diversion of IT resources from building your business
Luckily some free and easy precautions can help avoid disaster. Like implementing a content delivery network (CDN) tailored to your site‘s needs.
In this guide as a cybersecurity professional specializing in website performance and protection, I want to arm you with specific CDN solutions guaranteeing 3 critical layers of defense:
1. Benchmark performance – With site speed tests confirming blazing fast response globally
2. Hardened security – Passing checks against known web attack vectors
3. Budget protection – Using reliable free CDNs offsetting operation costs
Let‘s explore highly capable options in each area…
Cloudflare – Full Site Security Blanket
Cloudflare likely needs no introduction. They now accelerate and protect over 20 million domains making their network nearly unavoidable.
But here‘s a quick refresher on standout aspects of Cloudflare‘s free plan:
- Global Uptime – With 200+ data centers across 100 countries guaranteeing site reliability against unexpected traffic spikes or regional disruptions
| Region | Locations |
|---|---|
| Americas | 75+ |
| Europe | 60+ |
| Africa | 10+ |
| Middle East | 15+ |
| Asia Pacific | 50+ |
-
Top performance – Delivering web pages in under 100ms to 95%+ of global visitors by intelligent routing policies
-
Robust security – Blocking an incredible 44 billion cyber threats per day on behalf of all customers
This immense network allows Cloudflare delivering speed and protection even most premium plans struggle matching.
Now let‘s explore how that actually translates to securing your website…
Configuring Firewall Rules
One powerful yet oft-overlooked free security tool Cloudflare provides is custom WAF firewall policies – accessible under the "Firewall" dashboard section.
Here you can define rules to:
- Blacklist suspicious IP ranges already known for past malicious activity
- Limit countries allowed accessing potentially sensitive admin areas
- Add CAPTCHAs if signs of brute force attacks emerge
- Much more based on hundreds of triggers monitoring traffic
For example, if your site serves media or ecommerce products, geo-restrictions become critical. Stolen credit card data gets harder monetizing when attackers can‘t easily ship goods purchased with cards registered overseas.
By taking a few minutes configuring geo firewall rules, you drastically raise the difficulty level for fraud operations while avoiding having to reinvent the wheel writing custom filtering code.
Page Rules For Optimization
Page rules give another simple yet powerful way customizing site delivery beyond out-of-box settings. Just match specific pages or assets and tweak behavior like:
- Caching – For dynamic pages needing refreshed more aggressively
- Security – Restrict hotlinked media if bandwidth theft becomes an issue
- Mobile – Optimize plans or pricing pages for smartphone conversions
Page rules combine with Cloudflare‘s analytics offering a free way conducting mini site optimization experiments. See what content benefits most from CDN tweaks before deciding what‘s worth upgrading to enable across the entire site.
Added Partner Protection
Cloudflare also partners with dozens of security vendors so customers inherit their expertise layered atop core defenses. These include:
- VirusTotal – Scans and flags malware detected by 70+ anti-virus engines
- Jscrambler – JavaScript obfuscation defeating code theft or injections
- TrueSpeed – Visualizes web performance degradation by ISP/geo
The breadth of detection sources minimizes "blindspots" in coverage estate-focused tools often miss. And presents yet another security advantage Cloudflare holds as the world‘s largest CDN provider.
Real World Attack Protection
To see Cloudflare defenses in action, check their public dashboard of attacks observed across the network.
Views range from:
- Recent threats
- Attack locations
- Most targeted industries
- Malware signatures detected
So you gain confidence Cloudflare actively blocks new attack vectors menacing sites daily.
Taken together, these examples demonstrate how even Cloudflare‘s free CDN plan goes far beyond basic performance gains. You receive entirely pro-class site security most vendors charge premiums delivering.
Gcore – Blazing Fast CDN Choice
Now Cloudflare excels providing well-rounded protection for limited budgets. However, it falls slightly behind on raw speed benchmarks.
Here Gcore CDN emerges as another compelling freemium choice explicitly optimizing site performance.
They deliver assets through 150+ edge locations ensuring sub-30ms response times for a majority of website visitors. Impressively, the global median lands around just 15ms based on internal speed checks.
Gcore manages these fast speeds by strategic infrastructure partnerships balancing cost, flexibility and scale:
- Cloudflare – Over 275 globally distributed points of presence
- Selectel – 40+ locations across Russia/CIS states
- Amazon AWS – Leveraging their western Europe presence
The end result is websites loading with Formula 1 quickness without paying premium CDN pricing.
And Gcore doesn‘t just excel accelerating sites – they also provide very capable security. All customers gain features like:
- Base DDoS filtering
- Web application firewall
- Free TLS encryption
- Real-time analytics
So similar to Cloudflare, you receive a solid security floor blocking most common attack vectors by default.
Gcore particularly suits sites where speed is the absolute top priority. For example, news publications, media portals or real-time web apps rendering complex UIs.
If your site fits that bill, definitely give Gcore‘s free tier a look providing up to 1TB of monthly data.
Bonus WordPress Hardening
Many websites run on WordPress – along with its gigantic ecosystem of themes, plugins and related services.
Unfortunately, with great flexibility comes increased potential for security missteps. Plugins getting hacked or abandoned by their developers present a common headache for site owners.
While CDNs like Cloudflare or Gcore help harden sites from network attacks, shoring up core platform code still remains critical.
If you operate a WordPress site, here are quick hardening steps adding layers of protection:
Enable Automatic Background Updates
Keeping WordPress and installed plugins updated closes most exploited security holes. Rather than manually handling this, use automatic background updates:
// wp-config.php
define( ‘WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE‘, true );Limit Plugin/Theme Permissions
Uploaded extensions run using same privileges as WordPress itself by default. This means any successful hack against them gains full access immediately.
We can limit associated risks by adding:
// wp-config.php
define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT‘, true);This blocks editing plugins/themes from dashboard interface even if an attacker gains admin access.
Use Trusted Extensions
Stick with popular, well-maintained plugins having lots of eyeballs finding potential weaknesses:
- Gravity Forms
- Yoast SEO
- WooCommerce
- Sucuri Security
- WordFence
Avoid niche extensions with minimal downloads or reviews. The risks outweigh any distinctive feature benefits.
Following these tips creates a layered defense keeping your site safe regardless of what CDN used handling content delivery and caching.
Conclusion – Get Started Securing Your Site
After reviewing several capable CDNs with benchmarks and security recommendations, one truth becomes clear…
Every website needs performance and protection.
Failing to incorporate a CDN leaves you vulnerable to attacks jeopardizing income, customers and search visibility built over months or years.
Yet CDNs no longer remain a premium only option. As explored in this guide, incredibly featured services now exist available completely free.
I suggest starting with either:
- Cloudflare – For the most well-rounded security and ease of use
- Gcore – If site speed remains an utmost priority
Both will provide immense hardening against web threats preying after sites daily.
Additionally, take a few minutes applying WordPress specific hardening tips shared if relying on it for your platform. This closes common loopholes amplified by plugins and themes.
What are you waiting for? Sign up for a free CDN today and never stress about your site getting hacked again!
Let me know if you have any other questions. Happy to discuss more about securing your online presence further.
