No Platform is “Hack-Proof”

Website Security Risk Across WordPress, Drupal, Wix, Squarespace, Static, and AI

In short:  There is no single “most secure” website platform — security risk doesn’t disappear when you switch platforms, it relocates. WordPress and Drupal put the risk in code you maintain; Wix and Squarespace hand server security to the vendor but shift risk to your account; static sites shrink the attack surface but move it to your build pipeline; and AI-built sites are fast but ship insecure code by default. The safest platform is the one that’s competently maintained.

Why “which platform is safest?” is the wrong question

Every website has an attack surface. A database, a login page, a plugin, a dependency, a DNS record, an admin account — each is a door, and no platform has zero doors. What changes from one platform to the next isn’t whether the risk exists; it’s where the risk concentrates and who is responsible for closing it.

That reframing matters, because it cuts through the marketing. “We handle security for you” is true of hosted builders — for the parts they control. “Static sites can’t be hacked” is nearly true for the server, and not at all true for the supply chain that builds them. Once you know where each platform hides its risk, the right choice for your business gets a lot clearer. Here’s the whole landscape on one page:

Platform	Where the risk concentrates	Who patches it	Best fit
WordPress	Third-party plugins (91% of its vulnerabilities)	You / your maintainer	Custom, owned, SEO-flexible business sites — with upkeep
Drupal	Rare but severe core flaws; modules	You / your team (on a tight clock)	Complex, enterprise & high-compliance sites
Wix	Your account; third-party apps; platform-wide incidents	Wix (infrastructure); you (account)	Simple sites wanting low maintenance
Squarespace	Your account & DNS; platform operations	Squarespace (infra); you (account)	Design-forward simple sites (MFA on)
Static / Jamstack	Build pipeline, dependencies, third-party scripts	You (dependencies); host (CDN)	Brochure/blog sites with technical skill
AI-built (vibe coding)	Insecure generated code (45–70%); host platform	Whoever reviews the code — often no one	Prototypes; risky for unreviewed production

Where website security risk concentrates by platform, and who is responsible for it.

Platform by platform

WordPress — the power-and-responsibility platform

WordPress runs about 43% of the web, which makes it the single biggest target for automated attacks. Its core is genuinely secure — only six low-risk core vulnerabilities in all of 2025. The risk is the plugin ecosystem every business site accumulates: 91% of WordPress vulnerabilities in 2025 were in plugins, and for the most heavily targeted flaws, the weighted median time from public disclosure to mass exploitation was about five hours. You (or whoever maintains your site) are responsible for keeping all of it patched.

Best for: businesses that want full control, ownership, custom functionality, and SEO flexibility — provided someone actually maintains it.

Drupal — fewer vulnerabilities, heavier when they hit

Drupal has a far smaller footprint than WordPress, a more curated module ecosystem, and one of the oldest, most disciplined security teams in open source. That means fewer vulnerabilities overall. But when a core flaw does land, it can be severe and exploited fast: Drupalgeddon2 in 2018 was an unauthenticated remote-code-execution bug, and despite a week’s advance warning, an estimated 115,000 sites were compromised within 48 hours of the exploit going public. You’re responsible for patching, on a tight clock.

Best for: complex, high-compliance, enterprise or government sites with a technical team — usually overkill for a small business.

Wix — hand the servers to the vendor

Wix is closed and fully hosted: Wix runs the servers, the patching, and the DDoS defense, so there are no plugins or server software for you to update, and your day-to-day attack surface is small. The trade-off is that your risk shifts to three places you do control or add: your account (passwords, phishing, two-factor authentication), the third-party apps you install, and “shared fate” — when the platform itself has a flaw, every site on it is exposed at once. In mid-2025, a critical authentication-bypass in Base44 (Wix’s AI app builder) briefly let attackers reach private applications across its shared infrastructure; Wix patched it within 24 hours.

Best for: simple sites where low maintenance matters more than deep control.

Squarespace — same model, and a lesson about your account

Squarespace is also closed and hosted, with the vendor handling infrastructure security. Its cautionary tale is about the other half of hosted risk: on these platforms, your account is your security perimeter. In July 2024, after Squarespace absorbed roughly 10 million domains from Google Domains, the migration left multi-factor authentication disabled and accounts claimable by email — and attackers seized about a dozen high-profile domains, repointing their DNS to cryptocurrency-drainer phishing pages. The site code was never “hacked”; the accounts and DNS were.

Best for: design-forward simple sites — with Multi Factor Authentication turned on, non-negotiable.

Static / Jamstack — the smallest attack surface

A static site is a set of pre-built files served from a CDN — no database, no server-side code running on each request, no plugins. That eliminates the entire category of injection and plugin-vulnerability attacks that dominate WordPress and Drupal, and there’s almost nothing to patch. But the risk doesn’t vanish; it moves upstream to the build pipeline and its dependencies. 2025 was a brutal year there: the self-propagating Shai-Hulud npm worm and hundreds of thousands of new malicious packages showed how a single poisoned dependency can inject code into a built site or steal secrets during the build. Client-side third-party scripts (forms, analytics, chat widgets) and your host/DNS account are the other exposures.

Best for: brochure and blog sites where you have — or hire — technical skill; a poor fit for booking systems, memberships, or e-commerce without bolting on APIs that re-add attack surface.

AI-built (vibe coding) — fastest to ship, least predictable

Describe a site in plain English and an AI tool builds it. It’s astonishingly fast — and, on current evidence, insecure by default. Veracode’s 2025 study of more than 100 models found that 45% of AI-generated code failed basic OWASP security tests (Java was worst, around 72%); the Cloud Security Alliance put the figure at 62%, and Checkmarx as high as 70%. Carnegie Mellon found that while about 61% of AI-generated code works, only roughly 10% passes a security review. The failure mode is consistent: the AI optimizes for “it runs,” not “it’s safe,” and the person prompting it usually can’t tell the difference — a well-documented false sense of security. AI-built sites also inherit the shared-fate risk of whatever platform hosts them.

Best for: prototypes and internal experiments; risky as an unmonitored, public-facing business site unless a competent human security-reviews the output.

Connect4 Tip

The platform question is really a maintenance question. “Which is most secure?” almost always resolves to “which one has a competent human keeping it patched and its accounts locked down?” Choose your platform for control and fit — then make sure someone actually owns the upkeep. A neglected site is a liability on any platform; a maintained one is safe on nearly all of them.

So which should you choose?

Match the platform to three things: how much control and custom functionality you need, who is going to maintain it, and your tolerance for risk. In practice:

• Simple site, no maintainer, want hands-off — a hosted builder (Wix or Squarespace) with MFA turned on is a legitimate, reasonably secure choice.
• Business site needing custom features, integrations, SEO, and ownership — WordPress with a care plan gives you the most power without the exposure that comes from neglect.
• Content or brochure site, technical skill available, security and speed are priorities — static / Jamstack, with disciplined dependency hygiene.
• Complex, enterprise, or government site — Drupal, with a technical team on a fast patch cadence.
• AI-built — great for a fast first draft; don’t ship it to production handling real customer data until a human has security-reviewed it.

What you can do right now (any platform)

• Turn on multi-factor authentication everywhere — your site login, your host, and especially your domain registrar. It works on every platform and closes the most common door.
• Inventory what you’re actually running — plugins, modules, dependencies, and every third-party script embedded in your pages. You can’t secure what you haven’t listed.
• Delete what you don’t use. Every unused plugin, module, or dependency is attack surface you can remove for free.
• Confirm backups exist and that you can restore one. An untested backup is a hope, not a plan.
• If your site was AI-built or inherited, get the code security-reviewed before it handles customer data.

Where Connect4 can help

The platform you’re on matters less than whether someone competent is keeping it secure. That’s the part we own.

• Platform selection matched to your real needs — an honest recommendation based on your functionality, budget, and who will maintain it, not a one-size pitch.
• Managed maintenance and virtual patching for WordPress, so updates and protection operate on the same timeline the threats do.
• Secure migrations between platforms — done with MFA and DNS handled correctly, so you don’t repeat the 2024 Squarespace mistake.
• Security review of AI-built or inherited sites before they go live with real data.
• Ongoing monitoring, backups, and hardening rolled into a monthly care plan, so nothing is ever neglected long enough to become a vulnerability.

Frequently asked questions

Which website platform is the most secure?

There’s no single answer — security risk relocates rather than disappears. Static sites have the smallest server-side attack surface, hosted builders like Wix and Squarespace offload infrastructure security to the vendor, and WordPress and Drupal give the most control but require active patching. The safest platform is the one that’s competently maintained.

Is WordPress less secure than Wix or Squarespace?

Not inherently. WordPress core is very secure; its risk is unmaintained plugins plus being the web’s biggest target. Hosted builders reduce your maintenance but shift risk to account security and platform-wide incidents. A maintained WordPress site and a hosted site with MFA are both reasonably safe.

Are static (Jamstack) sites really unhackable?

No. Removing the database and plugins eliminates most injection attacks, but the risk moves to the build pipeline and dependencies — npm supply-chain attacks like the 2025 Shai-Hulud worm — plus third-party scripts and your host/DNS account. Lower risk, not zero.

Is it safe to build my business website with an AI tool?

For prototypes, yes. For a live site handling customer data, be cautious: independent studies found roughly 45–70% of AI-generated code contains security flaws, and the tools consistently prioritize functionality over safety. Have the output security-reviewed before it goes live.

What’s the single most important security step, regardless of platform?

Enable multi-factor authentication on every account tied to your website and domain. On hosted and static platforms especially, your account is the perimeter — the 2024 Squarespace domain hijackings happened precisely because MFA was switched off during a migration.

The platform is a choice. Maintenance is the answer.

It’s tempting to look for a platform that makes security someone else’s problem forever. None exists. Hosted builders take the servers off your plate but hand you the account and the third-party apps. Static sites shrink the surface but hand you the supply chain. AI builds fast but hands you code no one has checked. WordPress and Drupal give you the most control and hand you the responsibility that comes with it.

So choose your platform for fit — the control, functionality, and ownership your business actually needs — and then make sure the upkeep has an owner. That single decision does more for your security than any logo on your tech stack. If you’d like help picking the right platform, or keeping the one you have locked down, that’s exactly what we do.