Visit booth #Z09 and meet the team

We’ll have a dedicated booth (#Z09) running all four conference days.

At the booth you’ll have the perfect opportunity to connect with our official Kinsta representatives:

• Marcel Bootsman – Business Development Manager, Dutch and DACH
• Sonia Jimborean – Senior Account Manager
• Peter Kovacs – Director of Global Expansion
• Roger Williams – Community Manager
• Condor van Heijningen – Head of Sales, EMEA & APAC
• Viktoria van Heijningen – Global Expansion Project Manager
• Carlo Daniele – Business Development Manager, Italy
• Fahad Khalid – Sales Development Representative, APAC
• Nikola Djuric – Senior Technical Support Engineer

In addition to our main representatives, other Kinsta team members from Technology, Support, and Global Expansion will also be present. Whether you’re looking for expert insights, networking opportunities, or just some great conversation about the future of cloud hosting, we’d love to meet you!

Throughout the event, visitors can enter our raffle to win one of 10 exclusive Kinsta x CloudFest backpacks, each filled with special imported snacks from the countries where we’re localized.

Kinsta speakers at CloudFest

Kinsta’s experts aren’t just attending CloudFest, they’re actively contributing to the discussions shaping the cloud hosting and WordPress industries. Here’s a breakdown of the must-see sessions featuring Marcel and Roger:

March 17 (Mon)

• Roger Williams joins the Web Agency Day roundtable to discuss the collaboration between hosting providers and WordPress product developers.
• Marcel Bootsman features in the “Hosting as a Product and Not Just a Service” panel, exploring how hosting solutions can go beyond basic uptime and support.

March 18 (Tue)

• Hackathon Results Panel: Roger Williams discusses ecosystem sponsorship benefits, sharing insights on why supporting initiatives like the CloudFest Hackathon can transform brand recognition and hiring pipelines.
• MSPs vs. The Heavyweights: Why Hosting Shouldn’t Be Your Fight: Roger returns to the Ring Stage to reveal why MSPs benefit from partnering with managed hosts to meet their most demanding hosting needs.

March 19 (Wed)

• Beyond Infrastructure: Building a High-value WordPress Service with Kinsta: Marcel will take the NameStudio API Arena Stage to show how MSPs can add value through strong, reliable WordPress hosting partnerships.
• The Knockout Strategy: How MSPs Can Save Time, Cut Costs, and Scale with Managed Hosting: Roger’s back on the Ring Stage to discuss how MSPs can supercharge their businesses by outsourcing core hosting capacities.

March 20 (Thu)

• The Future of Cloud Services: Marcel joins a roundtable with senior hosting leaders to explore the emerging trends, tools, and partnerships shaping tomorrow’s hosting market—vital insights for any web professional.

CloudFest is a massive event filled with other valuable talks, panels, and networking opportunities. Be sure to check out the full agenda here and plan ahead so you don’t miss the sessions that matter most to you!

Join us at CloudFest 2025!

We can’t wait to connect with you at CloudFest! Be sure to drop by Kinsta’s booth for our daily raffle, chat with our team, and discover how partnering with Kinsta can elevate your WordPress projects and offerings. If you want an insider’s look at the speed, scalability, and international reach that Kinsta brings to your business, this is the place to be.

The post Meet Kinsta at CloudFest 2025 appeared first on Kinsta®.

However, like any online platform, WordPress is vulnerable to security risks if not properly managed.

The stakes for schools are high. Cybercriminals don’t just target schools for financial gain; they seek personally identifiable information that can be exploited in further attacks. A single data breach can expose student grades, personal details, health records, research documents, and financial transactions, putting both students and staff at risk.

This is not just a concern for higher education institutions — K-12 schools are equally vulnerable. Between 2016 and 2022, over 1,600 publicly disclosed cyberattacks targeted K-12 schools, leading to disruptions, financial losses, and data theft. Given these rising threats, schools must take proactive steps to secure their WordPress sites and protect sensitive data from malicious actors.

This article explores the security risks associated with using WordPress for schools and provides actionable steps to safeguard your school’s private data.

Cyberattacks that can expose your school site’s data

A school data breach can be catastrophic, exposing sensitive information about past and present students, faculty, and staff. Hackers know this, and this is why they refine their techniques to infiltrate school networks every day, and WordPress-based sites are no exception.

The following are the most common cyberattacks that can compromise your school’s website and lead to data breaches.

1. Phishing
2. Email compromise
3. Ransomware
4. Brute force attacks
5. Malicious plugins
6. DDoS attacks
7. Misconfigured user roles

Phishing

Phishing is one of the most common ways attackers steal login credentials and gain access to a school’s WordPress site.

For example, a school administrator receives an email that looks like it’s from the IT department, warning that their account will be deactivated unless they verify their credentials. The email contains a link directing them to what appears to be the school’s official WordPress login page. Unknown to them, the link leads to a fake site controlled by hackers. The administrator enters their credentials, unknowingly handing over full access to attackers.

Once hackers obtain login details, they can alter website content, extract any student records stored on the site, or even install malware that spreads through the school network.

Email compromise

This is similar to phishing. Attackers know that school email accounts are often linked to WordPress administrative access. If a hacker manages to take control of an educator’s or administrator’s email, they can request password resets and gain unauthorized entry to the WordPress backend.

With this knowledge, an attacker may send a fake email posing as the school principal, requesting a lecturer to update their login credentials using an attached link. The moment the teacher enters their details, the attacker seizes control, resetting WordPress passwords and hijacking the school’s website.

Ransomware

Ransomware attacks encrypt a school’s website and demand payment to restore access. A school administrator might log into the WordPress dashboard only to find a ransom note stating that all records — possibly including student transcripts and financial data — have been locked.

Without proper backups, schools may be left with an impossible choice: pay the ransom and hope the attacker releases the data or rebuild their site from scratch, potentially losing critical information in the process.

Brute force attacks

Brute force attacks involve hackers using automated tools to repeatedly guess login credentials until they crack the right combination. Schools that use weak or default passwords like “password123” or “admin2025” are particularly vulnerable.

If a hacker successfully gains access to an administrator account, they can modify content, lock out authorized users, or embed malicious scripts. Without safeguards like two-factor authentication (2FA) and login attempt limits, brute force attacks remain a serious threat to school websites.

Malicious plugins

WordPress plugins add functionality, but not all plugins are safe. Schools often install free plugins to enhance their websites, but some contain vulnerabilities or hidden malicious code.

For instance, a school installs a plugin to improve website performance. However, the plugin is outdated and contains an exploit that allows hackers to create a secret administrator account. Over time, attackers use this backdoor to extract student data or inject malware that spreads to visitors.

DDoS attacks

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks flood a school’s WordPress site with excessive traffic, overloading its servers and making the site inaccessible.

Imagine a school preparing for final exams, with students relying on the website for study materials and schedules. Suddenly, the site crashes due to an overwhelming surge of traffic — except this traffic isn’t from students; it’s from a coordinated attack designed to disrupt school operations.

Without a web application firewall (WAF) to mitigate such attacks, the website could remain down for hours or even days.

Misconfigured user roles

WordPress allows different levels of access through user roles such as Administrator, Editor, and Subscriber. If these roles are not properly configured, unauthorized users may gain higher privileges than intended.

For example, a student assigned as a contributor to the school blog might discover that they have administrator privileges due to a misconfiguration. They could then access confidential teacher documents, modify website content, or even delete essential files.

10 key steps to ensure your school’s data security on WordPress

To protect your school’s website and ensure compliance with privacy regulations, you need a multi-layered security approach.

Below are the key steps to safeguard your WordPress site from potential threats while maintaining a safe and reliable digital environment for students, staff, and administrators.

1. Choose a secure hosting provider

The hosting provider you choose directly impacts your school’s website security. Many schools go for cheap shared hosting, but this often means slow performance, weak firewalls, and shared server risks. If one site on the server is hacked, others are vulnerable, too.

Premium managed hosting for WordPress like Kinsta eliminates these risks by providing built-in security features, so you don’t have to rely on extra security plugins or manual configurations.

Here’s why Kinsta is an excellent choice for securing your school’s website:

• Automated daily backups: If your site gets hacked or data is lost, you can restore everything in one click. Kinsta keeps daily backups for 30 days and allows you to create manual backups when needed.
• Server-level firewalls: These act as a protective shield, filtering out malicious traffic before it even reaches your site. Kinsta uses Cloudflare and Google Cloud Platform’s firewall, offering multiple layers of protection.
• DDoS protection and IP blocking: Kinsta actively detects and blocks brute-force attacks, bots, and suspicious IPs to keep your site safe. If an attack occurs, our team is alerted and can take immediate action.
• Free SSL certificates: SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) ensures all data passing through your site is encrypted, protecting student logins, payments, and form submissions. Kinsta includes free SSL certificates with strong encryption standards (TLS 1.2 and 1.3).
• Security compliance and regular audits: Kinsta meets industry-leading security standards like SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, and ISO 27018, ensuring proper data handling and protection for schools dealing with sensitive student records.
• Malware detection and removal: Kinsta monitors your site 24/7 for malware and security threats. If a site is compromised, our hack-fix guarantee means we’ll clean it up for free.
• Uptime monitoring and quick response: Every three minutes, Kinsta checks if your site is up and running. If an issue is detected, our engineers act fast to restore it before it affects students or staff.

All this is crucial for schools, as any security mistake could risk student applications, tuition payments, and private records.

2. Use SSL to encrypt data

An SSL certificate ensures that all data exchanged between a user’s browser and your website is encrypted and secure from hackers. Without SSL, sensitive information like login credentials, student records, and payment details can be intercepted and stolen.

If your hosting provider doesn’t include SSL, you need to:

1. Install an SSL certificate through your hosting provider. Many offer free SSL via Let’s Encrypt.
2. Update your WordPress settings by changing the site URL to HTTPS in Settings > General.
3. Force HTTPS across all pages using a plugin like Really Simple Security.

If you’re using Kinsta, SSL is handled automatically — every site gets a free SSL certificate with strong encryption standards (TLS 1.2 and 1.3), so there’s no extra setup required.

To verify that SSL is working, look at your website’s URL. If it starts with HTTPS (instead of HTTP), SSL is active, and your connection is secure.

3. Strengthen login security

Weak passwords and unrestricted login attempts are the biggest entry points for hackers. Schools should enforce strict security policies to protect administrators, teachers, and student accounts.

Here are some key security measures:

• Require strong passwords: Use password managers to generate and store complex credentials.
• Enable 2FA: Even if a password is stolen, a second verification step stops unauthorized access. Use Google Authenticator for WordPress 2FA.
• Limit login attempts: A plugin like Limit Login Attempts Reloaded blocks users after multiple failed logins.
• Change the default WordPress login URL: Tools like WPS Hide Login make it harder for attackers to find the login page.

These small changes significantly reduce brute-force attacks, making it difficult for unauthorized users to access the site.

4. Keep WordPress, plugins, and themes updated

Keeping WordPress, plugins, and themes up to date is one of the most effective ways to protect your school’s website from security threats.

Updates include security patches that fix vulnerabilities before hackers can exploit them. If you fail to update, hackers can actively target outdated software, gain unauthorized access, inject malware, or steal sensitive student and staff data.

To keep everything updated safely:

• Enable automatic updates: WordPress applies minor security and maintenance updates by default. You can enable automatic updates for major releases, plugins, and themes by adding specific settings in wp-config.php or using plugins like Easy Updates Manager.
• Use a staging site: If your school relies on many plugins, test updates in a staging environment (available with hosts like Kinsta) before applying them to the live site.
• Manually review updates: Some updates can introduce compatibility issues. Check for updates regularly in Dashboard > Updates and install them as needed.
• Remove unused plugins and themes: Even if they’re not activated, outdated, inactive themes and plugins can be easy targets for hackers.

If you use Kinsta, updating plugins and themes is fast, secure, and automated. The MyKinsta dashboard lets you update multiple sites in one click using a bulk actions tool.

Kinsta also offers Automatic Updates, a paid add-on (free for the first month, then $3 per environment/month) that updates all plugins and themes, including inactive ones, every day. It also runs visual regression tests to detect update issues and automatically restores a backup if something breaks.

5. Use trusted plugins and themes

Using only trusted plugins and themes is crucial for protecting your school’s WordPress site. Nulled (pirated) plugins and themes often contain malware, backdoors, and hidden vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit to steal data or take control of your site.

Here’s how to choose safe plugins and themes:

• Download from trusted sources: Only install plugins and themes from the WordPress Plugin Repository, official developer websites, or reputable marketplaces.
• Check ratings, reviews, and update history: A plugin that hasn’t been updated in months or has poor reviews is a red flag. Look for plugins with frequent updates and active support.
• Avoid unnecessary plugins: The more plugins you install, the greater the security risk. Only keep the plugins you actually use.
• Scan for vulnerabilities: Use security tools like Wordfence, Sucuri, or WPScan to detect outdated plugins, misconfigurations, and potential threats before they can be exploited. At Kinsta, we automatically scan customer plugins and themes daily for security vulnerabilities, flagging outdated or risky ones in the MyKinsta dashboard so you can take action.

By using only trusted plugins and themes and managing them wisely, your school reduces the risk of security breaches and ensures a stable, secure site for students, teachers, and staff.

6. Backup data regularly

Even with the best security practices, things can go wrong: from human errors to cyberattacks. Having regular backups ensures you can restore your site without losing valuable student and administrative data.

Kinsta automatically backs up your site daily, with options for manual on-demand backups. For extra protection:

• Use backup plugins like BlogVault to create additional offsite backups.
• Store backups in multiple locations (like cloud storage or local hard drives). Kinsta supports automated external backups for a fee.
• Test backups regularly to ensure they can be restored without issues.

If your site is ever compromised, restoring a clean backup takes minutes, saving hours of downtime.

7. Set proper user roles and permissions

One of the biggest security risks on a WordPress site is giving users more access than they need. In a school environment, multiple people, including administrators, teachers, students, and IT staff, may need access to the site, but not everyone should have full control.

Misconfigured permissions can lead to accidental content deletions, security breaches, or even intentional abuse. WordPress has built-in user roles that allow you to control what each person can do on your site:

• Administrator: Has full control over the site, including installing plugins, changing themes, and managing all users. Only trusted IT staff should have this role.
• Editor: Can publish and manage any content but cannot change site settings or install plugins. Ideal for teachers or department heads who manage content.
• Author: Can write and publish their own posts but cannot edit others’ content. Best for staff members or guest contributors.
• Contributor: Can write posts but cannot publish them — an admin or editor must review them first. Useful for students contributing blog posts.
• Subscriber: Can only manage their profile and leave comments. Suitable for students or parents needing access to restricted content.

Here are some best practices for managing user permissions:

1. Follow the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP): Assign users only the permissions they need and nothing more.
2. Limit administrator accounts: Only IT staff or trusted personnel should have admin access.
3. Use plugins for advanced role management: Plugins like User Role Editor let you customize roles and permissions if the default ones don’t fit your needs.
4. Monitor and log user activity: Use plugins like Simple History to track who logs in and what changes they make, so you can detect suspicious activity.
5. Remove inactive accounts: To reduce security risks, old student or staff accounts that are no longer needed should be deleted.

By properly managing user roles and permissions, your school reduces security risks, prevents unauthorized changes, and ensures that only the right people have access to sensitive areas of your WordPress site.

8. Protect against malware and attacks

Malware attacks pose a serious threat to school websites, potentially leading to data theft, site defacement, blacklisting by search engines, or unauthorized access. Schools must take proactive measures to prevent infections, detect threats early, and respond quickly to security breaches.

To prevent this:

• Use a trusted security plugin: Install plugins like Wordfence or Sucuri, to enable firewall protection, malware scanning, and brute-force prevention.
• Enable regular malware scans: Set up scheduled malware scans to detect and remove threats before they cause harm.
• Block brute-force login attempts: Use limit login attempts plugins or configure security rules to prevent repeated failed sign-ins.
• Monitor user activity: Regularly check the Users section in WordPress and remove any suspicious admin accounts.
• Keep software updated: Outdated plugins and themes are a major security risk. Enable automatic updates for security patches.
• Use a WAF: A WAF filters malicious traffic before it reaches your site, blocking DDoS attacks, spam bots, and other threats.

If your school uses a premium host like Kinsta, this won’t be an issue.

9. Use a Web Application Firewall

A WAF is one of the most effective defenses against online threats. It acts as a security filter that sits between your WordPress site and incoming traffic, blocking malicious requests before they reach your server.

For schools, a WAF is essential to prevent DDoS attacks, SQL injections, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other cyber threats. Here’s how a WAF can protect your school’s website:

• Blocks malicious traffic: A WAF analyzes incoming traffic and automatically blocks bad actors, such as bots, hackers, and brute-force attackers.
• Prevents DDoS attacks: DDoS attacks can flood your site with traffic, causing it to crash. A WAF mitigates these attacks by filtering out harmful requests before they overwhelm your server.
• Stops SQL injections and XSS attacks: Hackers attempt to inject malicious code into forms, URLs, or database queries. A WAF detects and blocks these harmful requests, keeping your data safe.
• Protects login pages from brute-force attacks: By limiting failed login attempts and blocking suspicious IPs, a WAF helps prevent unauthorized access to your WordPress admin panel.

Cloudflare, Sucuri, and Kinsta’s built-in firewalls all offer enterprise-grade protection that automatically filters out threats.

10. Educate staff and students on security best practices

Even with strong security measures in place, your school’s biggest vulnerability remains human error. Phishing attacks, weak passwords, and careless handling of sensitive data can easily lead to security breaches.

Educating staff, students, and administrators on cybersecurity best practices is just as important as technical safeguards. Security awareness shouldn’t be optional, it should be part of your school’s culture.

Set up mandatory training courses (could be online) that all staff, students, and administrators must complete. These courses should cover:

• Recognizing phishing emails and social engineering attacks: Train users to identify suspicious emails and avoid clicking on unknown links.
• Using strong passwords and multi-factor authentication (MFA): Teach users how to create unique, complex passwords and enable 2FA for added protection.
• Safeguarding personal and school data: Emphasize why data security matters and how to avoid sharing sensitive information unintentionally.
• Secure browsing habits: Educate users on avoiding public Wi-Fi for logging into school accounts and recognizing unsecured websites (sites without HTTPS).
• Best practices for handling student records: Staff handling student data should understand compliance requirements such as FERPA, GDPR, or local data protection laws.

You should also reinforce learning by:

• Conducting simulated phishing attacks to test whether staff and students can recognize suspicious emails. Follow up with training for those who fail the test.
• Requiring quarterly cybersecurity refreshers to ensure everyone stays up to date with evolving threats.
• Making security training interactive with quizzes, real-life case studies, and practical exercises.

Summary

Protecting your school’s WordPress site is essential to keep student data, staff information, and financial records secure. By following the security steps explained in this article, your school can prevent data breaches and cyberattacks.

If you’re looking to lay the perfect security foundation for your educational website and avoid costly security risks, check out Kinsta’s hosting for education.

The post Keep your school’s private data secure when using WordPress appeared first on Kinsta®.

The dataset includes key metrics that help us understand how websites performed during Black Friday and Cyber Monday:

• Server requests — The total number of requests websites received.
• Bandwidth usage — How much data was transferred during peak periods.
• Cached vs. dynamic content — The split between static (cached) content and interactive (dynamic) requests, showing how users engaged with different parts of a site.

We also examined trends by region to see how different parts of the world engaged during these events and monitored security activity to understand the risks businesses face during peak traffic periods.

Our goal was simple: uncover actionable insights that show how users interact with websites during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In this article, we’ve broken down these findings, explained what they mean for e-commerce success, and outlined practical steps you can take to optimize your site, improve performance, and maximize sales during future peak shopping seasons.

Window shoppers show up on Cyber Monday. Buyers show up on Black Friday

Our data shows that Black Friday and Cyber Monday attract different visitors. On Black Friday, shoppers are decisive: they come ready to buy. In contrast, Cyber Monday brings a surge in browsing activity as users explore options, compare products, and look for the best deals.

To illustrate this, here’s how total traffic, cached traffic, and checkout-related activity compared between Black Friday and Cyber Monday:

The chart above shows that Black Friday and Cyber Monday serve different purposes for online users. On Black Friday, total traffic dipped slightly by 4.2% compared to the baseline. At first glance, this might look like reduced engagement, but a closer look tells a different story: e-commerce traffic actually increased by 7.2%, while all other traffic fell by 9.2%.

This makes sense: Black Friday shoppers are typically on a mission. They know exactly what they want and head straight to e-commerce websites to buy it. For instance, someone waiting for a Black Friday deal on a smartphone may see a 20% discount, immediately visit the retailer’s site, and finalize the purchase. This focused behavior is further supported by the 24.1% increase in checkout activity on Black Friday. On this day, users bypass static pages like product galleries or landing pages and interact more with dynamic elements like carts and checkouts.

Cyber Monday, on the other hand, tells a very different story. Total traffic increased by 42.5%, driven by a 56.5% increase in traffic from other sites and a 10.9% rise in e-commerce activity. Cyber Monday is a browsing-heavy day. Shoppers explore multiple options, compare products and research deals.

For example, imagine a shopper looking for a new pair of running shoes. On Cyber Monday, they might visit three different websites, read reviews, and compare prices before making a final decision. While Black Friday focuses on quick purchases, Cyber Monday is about exploration, though it still converts shoppers into buyers by the end of the day. This is evident in the 21% increase in checkout traffic, showing that many users complete their purchases after thorough browsing.

How to take advantage of these insights and convert browsers into buyers on both days

To turn more visitors into buyers, you need to match their intent. Black Friday shoppers want a fast, hassle-free checkout, while Cyber Monday visitors take their time browsing. The key is to remove friction for buyers and keep browsers engaged long enough to convert. Here’s how:

1. Make checkout fast and frictionless

Because Black Friday shoppers are in a hurry, the checkout process needs to be as fast and frictionless as possible. Even minor slowdowns or unnecessary steps can cause cart abandonment.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is forcing users to create an account before checking out. According to a Visual Website Optimizer study, 23% of online shoppers abandon their carts when they’re required to register. Offering guest checkout makes the process much smoother — customers can complete their purchase in a few clicks without the hassle of signing up.

Speed is also critical. A slow-loading checkout page can be disastrous on Black Friday. This is why it’s essential to test your checkout flow under heavy traffic before the big day. Simulate peak loads, check for bottlenecks, and ensure your payment system doesn’t slow down or fail when it matters most.

A reliable hosting provider also plays a huge role in preventing Black Friday slowdowns. If your website can’t handle the surge in traffic, it doesn’t matter how good your deals are — customers will leave. Kinsta’s Managed Hosting for WordPress is designed to scale with demand, ensuring that sites stay fast even under extreme traffic spikes.

2. Keep Cyber Monday browsers engaged

Cyber Monday visitors aren’t just looking for discounts — they want to make sure they’re getting the best deal on the best product.

One way to keep users on your site is by offering rich content. Adding detailed product comparisons, customer reviews, and video demos can help convince hesitant buyers. If someone is browsing multiple stores looking for the best gaming headset, a comparison table that highlights key differences can save them time and push them toward making a decision on your site.

Curated collections also work well on Cyber Monday. A “Best Deals Under $50” section or blog post like this helps guide indecisive shoppers, making it easier for them to find something they like. Think about Amazon’s Lightning Deals — they’re designed to grab attention, create urgency, and keep users engaged.

3. Retarget Cyber Monday shoppers who don’t buy right away

Since Cyber Monday is full of window shoppers, businesses need to bring those visitors back. Retargeting campaigns are an effective way to do this. Abandoned cart emails can remind users about items they left behind, while push notifications can highlight price drops or limited-time discounts.

If a shopper added a pair of running shoes to their cart but didn’t check out, sending them an email with “Still thinking about these? Here’s 10% off if you complete your purchase today” can be the push they need.

Live chat can also help move hesitant Cyber Monday shoppers toward checkout. Many visitors abandon purchases simply because they have unanswered questions about product details, shipping, or return policies. Offering instant support through live chat can prevent those doubts from turning into lost sales.

4. Automate follow-ups to capture more sales

Finally, marketing automation can make all the difference. Cyber Monday visitors often leave a site without buying anything, but that doesn’t mean they’re gone forever. By using automated email sequences, businesses can follow up with tailored offers, restock notifications, and exclusive post-sale discounts to encourage conversions even after the event is over.

For example, sending a “Cyber Monday Extended: Extra 15% Off Today Only” email the next day can bring back users who hesitated to purchase. Some businesses also send VIP discount codes to first-time shoppers, turning them into repeat customers.

Desktop takes the lead on Cyber Monday

When it comes to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, one trend is undeniable: desktop traffic plays a key role, especially on Cyber Monday. While mobile and tablet devices remain important, the data reveals that desktop usage surges during Cyber Monday, making it the device of choice for research-heavy and checkout activities.

Let’s break it down:

The chart above reveals a striking 21.5% increase in desktop traffic on Cyber Monday. This shows that desktops play a pivotal role in helping shoppers engage with websites, especially for research-heavy tasks like comparing products, reading reviews, and exploring detailed content.

On Black Friday, however, desktop traffic decreased by 7.4%. This suggests that shoppers relied more on mobile devices for quicker, more spontaneous purchases. Mobile traffic grew by 4.4% on Black Friday and by 7.1% on Cyber Monday, showing its consistent importance for on-the-go browsing and impulse buying.

Tablet traffic was relatively stagnant, with a 3% decline on Black Friday and a 2.1% increase on Cyber Monday. This indicates that tablets are less significant compared to desktops and mobiles, with shoppers favoring devices that better suit their specific needs during these events.

What this means for e-commerce websites

This shift in device preference across both shopping days presents key opportunities for e-commerce businesses to optimize their experience across platforms.

1. Leverage desktop’s Cyber Monday dominance

Cyber Monday is a research-heavy day, and shoppers expect detailed product pages, comparison tools, and an intuitive checkout process.

Ensure your desktop site is optimized for longer browsing sessions with high-resolution images, clear product descriptions, and easy filtering options. If you offer bundles or product recommendations, make them visible on the desktop where users are more likely to explore multiple options before purchasing.

2. Optimize mobile for Black Friday’s fast-paced buying

Since Black Friday sees more mobile engagement, make sure your mobile checkout is as quick and frictionless as possible. Reduce form fields, enable guest checkout, and ensure the mobile UI makes it easy to add products to the cart with minimal clicks.

A one-click checkout option or express payment integrations like Apple Pay or Google Pay can greatly improve mobile shoppers’ retention rates.

3. Consider targeted promotions by device

Knowing that Cyber Monday users favor desktops and Black Friday shoppers rely more on mobile, you can tailor promotions accordingly. For example, offering desktop-exclusive Cyber Monday deals or mobile-only Black Friday flash sales could drive conversions by matching user behavior.

Holiday shopping is a global phenomenon

Black Friday and Cyber Monday might have started as U.S.-centric shopping events tied to that country’s Thanksgiving holiday, but today, they’re truly global. The e-commerce traffic data from Kinsta-hosted sites in 2024 during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period reveals how these events resonate differently across regions, painting a vivid picture of worldwide engagement.

Here’s what the e-commerce-specific data tells us about regional trends during Black Friday and Cyber Monday:

The above chart shows fascinating differences in how regions engaged during these shopping days.

In the Americas, Black Friday e-commerce traffic stayed relatively flat at -0.5%, but Cyber Monday saw a modest increase of 2.2%. This suggests that while Black Friday remains a critical shopping day, e-commerce activity in the region has stabilized, with Cyber Monday offering a slight boost in online engagement.

Europe, on the other hand, displayed strong enthusiasm for Black Friday, with e-commerce traffic growing by 17.3%. Cyber Monday saw an additional 13.7% increase, indicating that European shoppers actively participate in both shopping events.

Asia showed steady growth across both days, with e-commerce traffic rising by 6.7% on Black Friday and 8.9% on Cyber Monday. This consistent engagement reflects Asia’s growing adoption of global shopping events!

Oceania saw a sharp 20.9% drop in e-commerce traffic on Black Friday, but Cyber Monday offered a slight recovery with a 2.3% increase. This pattern could suggest that Black Friday is yet to establish itself as a key e-commerce event in this region, while Cyber Monday shows a slightly stronger connection to digital-first shopping behaviors.

What this means for e-commerce businesses

This variation in shopping behavior across regions presents a unique opportunity for e-commerce businesses. For businesses expanding internationally, understanding these trends can help tailor promotions and marketing efforts to better align with customer expectations.

1. Expand your target markets

If your business serves Europe and Asia, your best bet is to invest heavily in localized Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns. Localized deals, currency-based discounts, and geo-targeted ads can make all the difference in connecting with shoppers who are now fully engaged in these events.

Meanwhile, for businesses focusing on the Americas, steady engagement across both days means promotions should be balanced, with Cyber Monday treated as an equally significant revenue driver.

2. Capitalize on Cyber Monday’s global growth

While Black Friday attracts decisive buyers, Cyber Monday is all about browsing and deal-hunting. This makes it the perfect time for retargeting campaigns, reminding visitors about the products they checked out but didn’t buy.

Offering exclusive discounts to email subscribers or personalized offers based on browsing behavior can significantly increase Cyber Monday conversions. Since shoppers are more exploratory on this day, providing limited-time flash deals or extended sales into Tuesday can also help capture those last-minute buyers.

3. Leverage regional differences to drive engagement

The way different regions interact with these shopping events gives a clear roadmap for marketing strategies. If you’re targeting Asia and Europe, you should start running promotions earlier in November to capture the excitement as Black Friday gains traction there.

In Oceania, where Black Friday isn’t as popular, building awareness through content marketing, educational campaigns, and early-bird vouchers can help establish these events. Pre-sale marketing with countdown timers and teaser campaigns will also get more people engaged leading up to the sales.

For example, you can create content like “Your guide to the best Black Friday & Cyber Monday deals” to get shoppers excited before the sales even start.

4. Use affiliates and social proof to boost conversions

Regions where Black Friday and Cyber Monday are still growing, like parts of Asia and Oceania, rely heavily on trust signals when making purchase decisions.

Partnering with local influencers, affiliate marketers, and regional content creators can help bridge that trust gap and drive sales. If shoppers see people they trust recommending deals, they’re more likely to buy.

Displaying real-time purchase notifications, customer reviews, and “low stock” alerts can further build urgency and push hesitant buyers toward checkout.

5. Prepare for global scalability

Cyber Monday generated massive traffic spikes in Asia, Europe, and the Americas, proving that global e-commerce infrastructure needs to be ready for these surges.

Businesses should invest in high-performance hosting, a robust CDN (Content Delivery Network), and scalable servers to handle increased traffic without slowdowns.

Kinsta’s hosting, powered by a Cloudflare-integrated CDN with over 260+ global locations, ensures fast load times and reliability during high-traffic events. This means your site stays responsive, no matter where your customers are shopping from.

Protect your website or suffer the consequences

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the most exciting days for e-commerce, but they’re also the most dangerous. As traffic surges, so do cyberattacks! From bot traffic trying to game discount systems to DDoS attacks that crash sites, malicious activity peaks right when your customers need you the most.

The numbers don’t lie. During Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2024, WAF (Web Application Firewall) events at Kinsta spiked dramatically:

In the chart above, blocked requests rose significantly, with a 42.8% increase on Black Friday and a 44.0% rise on Cyber Monday. These numbers highlight a consistent effort by malicious actors to overwhelm websites, particularly during the busiest e-commerce days of the year.

Managed challenges, which evaluate user behavior to detect bots, also saw sharp increases. Black Friday experienced a 29.4% rise, while Cyber Monday spiked dramatically by 88%. This suggests a surge in bots trying to scrape data, test vulnerabilities, or manipulate dynamic elements like search filters during these shopping events.

Interestingly, JavaScript challenges, another bot detection method, showed a 9.6% increase on Black Friday but decreased by 24.1% on Cyber Monday. This drop indicates a shift in attack strategies, with attackers likely focusing on bypassing other layers of security rather than triggering JavaScript-based detection mechanisms.

These patterns demonstrate that as legitimate traffic surges, so do attempts to exploit it. Your business needs to be prepared, as downtime or vulnerabilities during these critical moments can lead to lost revenue, frustrated customers, and long-term damage to their reputation.

How to keep your store safe

The worst time to think about website security is when an attack is already happening. Black Friday and Cyber Monday bring massive surges in traffic, but as the data shows, they also attract bad actors looking for vulnerabilities to exploit.

Whether it’s bot-driven fraud, brute-force login attempts, or full-scale DDoS attacks, your site needs to be ready before the rush begins. If your store goes down or gets compromised, you don’t just lose sales — you risk damaging customer trust permanently.

Here’s what you need to do to keep your store safe:

1. Block threats before they reach your site with a WAF

Hackers don’t wait until your site is ready — they start probing for weaknesses weeks before major shopping events.

A WAF acts as a security checkpoint, filtering out malicious traffic before it can do damage. During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, blocked requests jumped over 40%, proving that attackers ramp up their efforts during these periods. If you don’t have a WAF in place, you’re giving them an open door.

At Kinsta, our Cloudflare-powered WAF automatically blocks suspicious traffic before it ever hits your site, keeping both customers and transactions safe.

2. Make sure your website can handle the traffic surge

A site crash doesn’t just frustrate shoppers — it hands them over to your competitors. Black Friday and Cyber Monday bring a flood of visitors, and if your infrastructure isn’t built to handle the load, slowdowns, checkout failures, and full-on downtime become real risks.

Using a CDN distributes traffic across multiple locations, reducing server strain and keeping load times fast. If you’re on shared hosting or a provider that struggles with high traffic, it’s time to reconsider.

3. Keep an eye on login activity and bot traffic

Many attacks start small, with cybercriminals testing weak credentials or overwhelming login pages with bots. If your store isn’t monitoring these patterns, you won’t notice the warning signs until real damage is done.

Watch for unusual login attempts, rapid spikes in bot activity, and unexpected surges in failed transactions. Setting up alerts for suspicious activity helps you act before a full-scale attack takes hold.

4. Don’t leave security gaps in outdated software

One of the easiest ways hackers gain access to sites is through outdated WordPress installations, plugins, and themes. If you haven’t updated in a while, you’re running with known vulnerabilities that attackers actively target.

Updating to the latest WordPress version, switching to a supported PHP version, and regularly checking for plugin updates closes the gaps before they can be exploited.

5. Lock down your admin login

Weak passwords and default usernames like “admin” are gift-wrapped invitations for hackers. Brute-force login attempts skyrocket during major shopping events, as attackers try to break into admin accounts. Secure your store by:

• Changing your username to something unique.
• Using a strong password with uppercase, lowercase, symbols, and numbers.
• Enabling two-factor authentication (2FA) so even stolen passwords aren’t enough to log in.

6. Secure customer data with SSL encryption.

Shoppers won’t trust an unsecured checkout. If your site doesn’t have SSL (HTTPS), browsers will warn customers that their data isn’t safe — leading to abandoned carts and lost sales.

More importantly, SSL encrypts sensitive data like credit card details, protecting customers from interception. If you’re still running without SSL, it’s time to fix that immediately. Kinsta provides free SSL certificates, so there’s no excuse to skip this.

7. Choose hosting that doesn’t leave security up to you.

Security shouldn’t be an afterthought, and it shouldn’t be your full-time job either. Your hosting provider should proactively handle security by offering firewalls, DDoS protection, automated updates, and real-time monitoring.

If something goes wrong, you need a team that responds instantly — not one that leaves you hanging. Kinsta includes enterprise-grade security and 24/7/365 support from real humans, so when attacks peak, your site stays online while others go down. Whether it’s the middle of the night or peak shopping hours, you’ll always have experts ready to help.

Summary

Black Friday and Cyber Monday bring immense opportunities for e-commerce businesses but demand careful preparation.

Slow load times, downtime, or security breaches can quickly turn a record-breaking sales day into a disaster. Reliability is everything. Your hosting provider should not only handle traffic surges but also offer 24/7 human-only support, so if anything goes wrong, you have real experts ready to help — no bots, no delays.

With Kinsta, you get high-performance hosting for e-commerce, plus free migrations, so you can switch with zero hassle. Need more power? Our PHP Performance Add-on also boosts memory and threads for your sites. Let us handle the infrastructure while you focus on growing your business. Migrate to Kinsta today.

The post What Kinsta’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday analytics can teach e-commerce websites appeared first on Kinsta®.