The Myth: "We're Too Small for a DDoS Attack"
It sounds logical: why would a hacker waste their time on the website of a small bakery, a local physiotherapist, or a young e-commerce entrepreneur?
The reality is different. 68% of all DDoS attacks in 2026 targeted SMBs — not large corporations. Why? Because SMBs are easy targets. They often lack proper security, have no dedicated IT team, and use cheap hosting without DDoS protection.
📊 Real-world data: In 2025, the number of DDoS attacks on SMB websites increased by 340%. The average downtime costs a small business €2,500 to €10,000 per hour.
Why WordPress Is Extra Vulnerable
WordPress powers over 43% of all websites worldwide. That success has a downside: it's a massive target.
WordPress sites are especially vulnerable to DDoS attacks because:
- Shared hosting: most WordPress sites share a server with dozens of other sites. A DDoS attack on one site can take down the entire server — including yours.
- Plugins as attack surface: outdated plugins, vulnerable themes and weak admin passwords are common entry points for attackers to use your server in amplification attacks.
- XML-RPC / REST API abuse: WordPress's XML-RPC and REST API endpoints are frequently abused for reflection attacks, generating massive traffic with minimal effort.
- No built-in DDoS protection: WordPress itself has no DDoS protection. You need external infrastructure for that.
⚠️ Important:
Standard web hosting packages offer NO protection against this. Most cheap hosting providers don't filter malicious traffic — your site is completely exposed.
What Happens During a DDoS Attack on Your WordPress Site?
Imagine: it's Monday morning. Your phone rings — customers can't reach your site. Your webshop is offline, your contact form isn't working, and you have no idea what's happening.
Here's what happens step by step:
- 1. Traffic surge: your site suddenly receives millions of requests per second — from botnets, compromised IoT devices, or reflection servers. Your cheap shared hosting can't handle this.
- 2. Server overload: your web server (Apache/Nginx) runs out of memory and CPU. The database connection fails. Your site becomes extremely slow or completely unreachable.
- 3. Hosting provider intervenes: your hosting provider notices the unusual traffic and nullroutes your IP to protect their other customers. Your entire site — including email — goes offline.
- 4. The aftermath: you lose sales, miss leads, and damage your reputation. Even after the attack stops, it can take hours to恢复正常 everything. Many small businesses never fully recover.
The result: lost revenue, damaged reputation, and expensive emergency solutions.
How Retslav Protects Your WordPress Site
Retslav is not an ordinary web host. Where other hosting providers only offer "best effort" during an attack, Retslav has DDoS protection built into its infrastructure from the ground up.
🛡️ L4 + L7 filtering
We filter traffic at both network level (Layer 4) and application level (Layer 7). WordPress-specific attacks — like XML-RPC floods and brute force attacks — are automatically detected and blocked.
⚡ Real-time mitigation
From the moment an attack is detected, your traffic is rerouted through our scrubbing centers. Average mitigation time: under 30 seconds.
🌐 Multi-datacenter redundancy
Your site is hosted in Amsterdam or Brussels with automatic failover. If one location is under attack, traffic switches to the other within seconds.
🔒 NVMe + LiteSpeed
LiteSpeed web server with NVMe storage ensures your WordPress site loads fast — even with high traffic or during an attack.
The result: your WordPress site stays accessible, even during an attack. No hassle with .htaccess rules or complicated configurations — we handle it at the infrastructure level.
What Does It Cost?
Retslav's web hosting with DDoS protection starts at €5/month — that's often less than what you're already paying for a standard WordPress host without protection.
Web Starter
€5/mo
- 1 WordPress site
- 10GB NVMe storage
- L4 + L7 DDoS protection
- 1 email account
Web Business
€15/mo
- 5 WordPress sites
- 50GB NVMe storage
- Enterprise DDoS protection
- 5 email accounts
- Daily backups
Web Enterprise
€30/mo
- Unlimited sites
- 200GB NVMe storage
- Enterprise DDoS + priority
- Unlimited email
- Daily backups + 99.99% SLA
💰 Compare:
An average WordPress host without DDoS protection (€8-€15/month) + a separate Cloudflare Pro subscription (€20/month) + your own maintenance time. Retslav is cheaper and simpler.
Action Plan: How to Make Your WordPress Site Safer Today
Switch to a provider like Retslav that has DDoS protection built-in. Don't rely on "best effort" promises.
Outdated plugins are a security risk. Enable automatic updates for minor versions and check regularly.
Weak admin passwords are the #1 cause of WordPress hacks. Use a password manager and enable two-factor authentication.
XML-RPC is a common attack vector for DDoS amplification. Disable it unless you need the WordPress app.
Wordfence, iThemes Security or Sucuri can help with additional firewall rules and login protection.
No contract, no setup hassle, immediately protected.
Frequently Asked Questions
"I use Cloudflare, isn't that enough?"
Cloudflare's free plan offers basic DDoS protection, but it's far from complete. It doesn't protect against all layer 7 attacks, and it doesn't help if your origin server IP is leaked. Retslav offers protection at the server level — so even if your IP is exposed, you're still protected.
"Is Retslav suitable for my existing WordPress site?"
Absolutely. We help you migrate your existing WordPress site to Retslav — often within a few hours. We handle the DNS migration and ensure your site stays online during the switch.
"What about backups?"
All Retslav web hosting plans include daily automatic backups. We store backups for 7 days, so you can always restore to a previous version. Enterprise plans offer 30-day retention.
"Can a DDoS attack really be that big?"
Yes. In 2026, the average DDoS attack size is over 1 Tbps. Many WordPress hosts have less than 100 Gbps of total capacity — they're overwhelmed instantly. Retslav has a 9 Tbps peak mitigation capacity and has already blocked over 5 petabytes of malicious traffic. If an attack is exceptionally large, we automatically escalate to our upstream network.
Ready to truly secure your WordPress site?
Don't wait until you're the target of an attack. Switch to DDoS-protected hosting today and sleep peacefully.