Battling Bots: Website Security Essentials for 2025

May 30, 2025

Battling Bots: Website Security Essentials for 2025

The Bot Invasion: What We’re Seeing Right Now

If you’ve noticed some weird activity on your website lately, you’re not alone. Here at MayeCreate, we’re seeing some trending oddities:

• Increased traffic with decreased time on site – Looks great in your analytics until you realize those aren’t real people
• A large uptick in false login attempts – Those hundreds of emails about suspicious logins? Not just you.
• Comment spam in Russian, promoting questionable products – Everything from designer knockoffs to… well, let’s just call them “enhancement products”

Rebecca assures us this isn’t just happening to our clients—it’s a widespread issue affecting websites across the board. And it’s getting worse.

Not Just Annoying: Why These Bots Are Dangerous

Why should you care about bot traffic? Well, unless you enjoy inflated analytics with zero actual customers, slow websites, potential data breaches, and, per Rebecca, maybe even getting sued over stolen information (you’ll have to excuse Rebecca-she’s MayeCreate’s resident security rain cloud, which is what makes her so good at her job 😉 🌧️) —you’ll want to pay attention.

So why are these bots targeting your website? There are several motivations:

• Financial gain – They’re after your money or your visitors’ financial information
• Data theft – Both your business data and your customers’ personal information
• Identity theft – Social security numbers, addresses, contact information
• Extortion – Stealing private information and demanding payment to not release it
• Promotion – Creating backlinks to boost their own sites
• Pure chaos – Sometimes they’re just being a pain in the butt 

Yeah. Rebecca says some attackers don’t even have anything to gain—it’s like a pet project or just causing chaos for the fun of it. Charming, right?

Who’s Most at Risk?

While all websites are potential targets, the most vulnerable are those belonging to website owners who aren’t as tech-savvy. They don’t update their software and plugins or have offensive security measures in place on their sites because, quite frankly, they just don’t know how or didn’t even know they needed it. And they may not recognize the warning signs that their site is under attack until it’s too late.

Our aging population, who may not recognize the signs of a compromised website, are particularly at risk.

But before you think, “I’m tech-savvy, I’m fine,” remember that one vulnerability can lead to multiple issues. If you’re on a shared server (as many websites are), a successful attack on one site can affect all the others on that server. Just another reason why cheap hosting plans are cheap.

The Real-World Consequences of Bot Attacks

So what happens when these bots attack your site? The results can range from annoying to catastrophic:

1. Your Analytics Turn Into Fiction

Those traffic spikes you’re seeing? They might not be real people. Bot traffic inflates your numbers without giving you any actual insights. As we review websites each week, we’re seeing some alarming trends:

• The number of users appears extremely inflated
• Time on site is suspiciously low

This makes using your marketing data to make decisions nearly impossible without proper filtering. You have to remove all those two-to-three-second visits just to see what real humans are doing on your site.

Now not all those 2-3 second bots are bad traffic, AI is a bot too. So if your site is combed by ChatGPT, Perplexity or even Alexa to find an answer that’s actually kinda cool. Especially since ChatGPT has already begun to roll out shopping features allowing users to purchase things directly through ChatGPT by clicking on a BUY button that takes you to the retailer’s website to make a purchase.

So not all bot traffic is bad traffic but the people who are making purchasing decisions (even if they came from ChatGPT) are still humans on your site…and they SHOULD be there for longer than a few seconds or you’re doing something wrong. 

2. Your Website Slows to a Crawl

When bots attack a website, they consume server resources. If your site is on a shared server (and most are), this affects every site on that server.

Let me explain what happens: If a website that’s sharing server space with yours is getting hacked, it’s sucking all the resources from that particular server. The server doesn’t have enough resources to allocate to your website anymore. So now your website’s running slowly, and your legitimate users might have trouble logging in or might even get rejected because the system is overwhelmed.

This kind of decreased performance is a real problem for businesses that need their websites to function properly. And again..why you don’t want to choose the cheapest hosting plan possible. 

3. Your Data Gets Compromised

Data breaches aren’t just for big companies anymore. Small business websites are increasingly targeted because they often have fewer security measures in place.

When hackers gain access to your website, they’re after valuable information. This could include:

• Customer contact information
• Private files and documents
• Payment information
• Social security numbers
• Login credentials that could be used on other platforms
• Medical or other sensitive personal data

Some attackers will even use compromised data for extortion purposes. In some cases private information is stolen then followed by emails threatening to release that data unless a ransom is paid. This could involve social security numbers or other sensitive personal information. 

Rebecca recently had her own health insurance company experience a breach. An off-campus data server was hacked, exposing customer information. While they compensated affected customers with a free year of identity theft protection and monitoring, the consequences can be much worse for website owners who are found liable for not protecting their users’ data.

4. You Could Face Legal Consequences

If you collect sensitive information and it gets leaked, you could be held liable—especially if you weren’t doing your due diligence with security.

For any business that handles payment information, medical data, or personal identifiable information, the stakes are particularly high. If you own your own server or have a website with lots of sensitive information, you absolutely need cyber insurance.

What To Do If You’ve Been Hacked

If you suspect your website has been compromised, don’t panic—but do act quickly. Here’s what to do:

1. Contact Your Website Team Immediately

The most frustrating thing for me is when clients wait weeks before telling us about suspicious activity. By then, the damage is usually much worse, and it’s harder to fix.

Even if you’re not sure it’s a hack (sometimes it’s just a cookie notification or a legitimate system message), let your web team know right away. We’d much rather investigate a false alarm than deal with a three-week-old security breach.

2. Check Your Backups

Hopefully, you have a good hosting plan that takes regular backups. Our server takes daily backups, and we make manual ones before major changes.

If you’re lucky, you can roll back your site to a clean version and then assess where the vulnerability was. But be careful with rolling back if you have a members-only section or forms collecting important data—you’ll want to consider the potential data loss.

3. Consider Professional Help

If your site has been compromised, you may need professional help to clean it up properly.

Some hacks inject code that self-replicates—meaning if you don’t find every instance of the malicious code, it will just come back. There are services that specialize in “unhacking” websites, or you might have a developer like Rebecca who can help.

Or if you can’t afford professional help, I hate to say it, but you may just have to rebuild the darn thing. Especially if it’s a small site, starting fresh can sometimes be the best way to go.

Bot-Proofing Your Website: 9 Security Essentials

Now for the good part—how to protect your website from bots and hackers in the first place. Here are our top security recommendations:

1. Pay Attention and Act Quickly

The first sign of unusual activity is your cue to take action. Don’t ignore those security notifications or unusual patterns in your analytics. The sooner you address a potential issue, the less damage it can do.

2. Be Selective About Data Collection

Don’t collect sensitive information if you don’t absolutely need it. For example, if you have an employment form, you don’t need every applicant’s social security number upfront—that’s something you’d only need once you hire someone.

If you do need to collect sensitive data, make sure it’s happening at the appropriate point in your process and with proper protection in place. You may even consider a vetted third party service to collect the information and safely house it for you.

3. Install reCAPTCHA on Your Forms

A CAPTCHA is your first line of defense for website forms. These security measures can distinguish between humans and bots based on behavior patterns.

Why is this so important? Without reCAPTCHA:

• Your inbox will flood with spam form submissions
• You’ll receive suspicious emails with fraudulent links
• Bots will create fake accounts on your membership sites
• Comment sections will fill with inappropriate content (often in Russian or promoting questionable products)
• Bots can use your forms to inject malicious code

4. Use a Security Plugin Like Defender

#NotSponsored we actually pay Defender for their pro plugin and we’re happy to do it. We install it on every single one of our websites. Rebecca calls it her “security best friend,” and for good reason. Defender allows us to:

• Audit website activity to see who’s logged in and what they’ve done
• Block or whitelist specific IP addresses
• Block suspicious usernames or entire countries
• Set up firewall protection
• Add security headers to prevent script injections
• Block IPs that try to access non-existent URLs or use known vulnerable usernames

It also scans for malware and can rename your admin user to make it less vulnerable to attacks. 

5. Consider Cloudflare or Another CDN

Cloudflare acts as a wall between your website and malicious attacks. It creates a cached version of your site on a content delivery network (CDN), so attackers aren’t accessing your actual server.

This is particularly helpful against DDoS attacks, where large numbers of bots try to overload your server. Cloudflare can block suspicious traffic and make users verify they’re human before accessing your site.

As a bonus, a CDN also speeds up your website by storing versions on servers closer to your visitors’ physical locations. And I’m not even joking, you can start using it for FREE. Crazy right?!? My brain nearly exploded when I first heard about it at WordCamp back in 2019. 

6. Use Third-Party Payment Processing

Never collect payment information directly on your website. In the past, websites would store credit card information directly on their servers—a terrifying practice that thankfully has been retired to the hall of terrible internet ideas.

Instead, use services like Stripe or Authorize.net that specialize in secure payment processing. These services offer several critical advantages:

When you use services like Stripe, your website never actually “sees” the full credit card information. Instead, it receives a secure token that represents the transaction. If you look at your payment logs, you’ll see it was “processed through Stripe using a Stripe token.” Any detailed payment information is stored in your Stripe account, not in your website database.

This approach significantly reduces your liability. If a hacker breaches your site, they can’t steal payment information because it’s simply not there. For businesses of any size, third-party payment processing isn’t just convenient—it’s essential for security.

7. Enable Two-Factor Authentication

Rebecca is passionate about two-factor authentication, and for good reason. This extra layer of security means that even if someone gets your password, they still can’t access your accounts without a verification code.

At minimum, you should have two-factor authentication on your Google account, social media, and financial services. And don’t use the same password for everything—get a password book if you need to!

8. Take Regular Backups

As mentioned earlier, if disaster strikes, a recent backup is your best friend. Make sure your hosting plan includes regular backups, or use a plugin that handles it automatically.

One of our horror stories involves taking over a site that hadn’t been backed up in nearly a year. Don’t be that client.

9. Keep Everything Updated

One of the easiest ways for a site to get hacked is through outdated plugins or core software. These updates often include security patches for known vulnerabilities.

And it’s not enough to just check for the “update available” notification. Some plugins become abandoned by their developers, meaning they won’t show as needing updates but are still vulnerable. Part of good website maintenance is regularly evaluating if your plugins are still actively maintained.

Want to dive deeper into website security? Check out our post: #1 Way to Protect Your Website From Hackers for additional tips and strategies.

The Hard Truth: No Website Is 100% Secure

Rebecca, ever the realist, tells us that the only way to have a truly secure website is to have no website at all. But that’s obviously not an option for most businesses and then she’d have no job so…

Think of website security like driving—you can be the safest driver on the road, following all the rules and using your blinker religiously, but you can’t control everyone else on the road. The same goes for your website. You can do everything right and still face risks.

But that doesn’t mean you should give up. By implementing these security measures, you dramatically reduce your risk of an attack. As Rebecca puts it, your website is like your HVAC system—it needs regular servicing and maintenance, and sometimes things go wrong despite your best efforts. But having a good team behind you means you’re not alone when problems arise.

Remember, in the battle between humans and bots, a little knowledge goes a long way.