Discover online security With the MODX CMS.

A secure website is more important now than ever. This is because of the GDPR legislation, the increasing threat of hackers, and the automated hacking attacks, among other things. Since day one, MODX has focused on the security of your website and keeps updating its CMS to make it even more secure. How does MODX guarantee the security of its sites? That’s what you’ll find more about in this blog!

MODX CMS

Over 15 years ago, MODX was created with the focus on creative freedom, without losing sight over safety. The MODX CMS gives end users (content managers), designers, and developers all the freedom to create a beautiful and functional online product. This CMS lets you efficiently distribute content on all your different channels, and you can add all the functionalities and features you need to achieve your goals.

MODX and security

MODX was created 20 years ago with a focus on creative freedom, all while keeping security at its core. The MODX CMS provides both end users (content managers), developers, and designers with complete freedom to build a beautiful and functional online product. To keep your CMS fast and secure, consider adding these features:

• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) login: With this feature, you have to enter an additional password that changes periodically, along with your username and password, providing an extra layer of security.
• Verify login: This feature checks each login attempt to see if it was accessed from a recognized location (based on your IP address). If it’s an unfamiliar location, an email with all relevant login data is automatically sent to the user’s registered email address.
• Encrypted form submissions: All forms are encrypted, making it harder for outsiders and hackers to access the information entered in forms.

Security is fundamental to MODX, but how does the MODX community do this? Within this community is a team of developers (so-called integrators) that checks all the code contributed to this CMS, before adding it to the latest version. Besides checking the contributions, this team also continuously monitors the existing code. When a vulnerability in the CMS is found, this immediately gets addressed and solved.

MODX’ security vs. other CMSs

In general, all CMSs will take great value on their security. Still, there is a big difference between the security of MODX compared to other CMSs. As the image below shows, WordPress is the least secure CMS. Most of it is because half of the websites available are made in WordPress. That’s why hackers mainly focus on WordPress websites than the ones made in MODX.

Besides that, in WordPress, everyone can add plugins without the code getting checked. That’s how poorly coded, and mostly unsafe plugins can easily be added to your website, which eventually only does more harm than good.

^{Last updated on October 2024, click for the most recent numbers on the CMS of your choice.} 

How can you make your website more secure?

To make your website as secure as possible and to offer your online users security and privacy, it’s essential to take a look at these points:

• Request an SSL certificate for your website. This is to show your users that they can be sure that you secure the information they share on your website;

• Keep your software up-to-date;

• Know which plug-ins you've installed and make sure these plug-ins are up-to-date;

• Try to download plugins that have been downloaded more than once, are recently updated and have excellent reviews to be more confident that they won’t crash your website.

• Choose the right server/web hosting that shows the level of security you want your website to be in;