Yoast and Sucuri Partner to Create a Safer Web

We’re very excited to finally talk about a partnership that’s been in the works for a few months and in light of the serious nature of the Security in the WordPress ecosystem it only makes sense. It also comes at a time where we, as an organization, are reinvesting into Website Security space through extensive research which gives us a better grasp of the real threat landscape looks like for website owners.

Benefits of the partnership can be seen and felt by both organizations. Over the past 3 weeks we, Sucuri, have been undergoing big changes in our branding and messaging and many have already started to comment. For Yoast, security audits have begun and updates have been proactively pushed to their users. It is our belief that through this partnership we will be able to make a bigger impact to the online threats website owners face on a daily basis. For those wondering, none of Yoast’s plugins or updates to them that we’ve audited contained any serious vulnerabilities.

This post will talk to the specifics of the partnership and how we will be working together.

Regular Security Audits Drive Customer Trust in Yoast Plugins

Yoast BV, a firm that has pioneered user-friendly SEO best practices and Sucuri, Inc., one of the fastest growing website security companies on the web, announced today that they have partnered to secure Yoast’s award-winning suite of products.

More than 4 million websites around the world, comprising over 20 millions downloads across it’s products, use WordPress plugins developed by Yoast, like the eponymous WordPress SEO plugin, to help them deliver their content or products to the right consumers through search engines like Google and Bing. Today, Yoast BV and Sucuri announce a mutually beneficial partnership in which they join forces to more proactively reach millions of website owners in the event of security events. Together, Yoast and Sucuri are committed to making a difference and creating a safer web through their respective audiences.

This partnership will leverage what makes each company unique, Yoast for its expertise in SEO and website presence, and Sucuri for it’s expertise in website security.

With millions of sites using our software, we have a responsibility to make sure we’re doing the best we can to prevent them from harm. We’re very happy to be partnering with Sucuri because it gives us peace of mind. Our plugins are already among the most advanced available on the market, now we’re also sure that we’ll be among the most secure. –Joost de Valk, CEO of Yoast.

Through their partnership with Sucuri, Yoast ensures that their suite of plugins are among the most secure plugins available in the market. In the past month, Sucuri has disclosed vulnerabilities with some of the largest plugins in the WordPress ecosystem, together enjoying over 20 million downloads and leveraged by millions of websites. Yoast recognizes that the responsibility for a safer web extends far beyond security companies and through this partnership is taking the first step to improve their security posture as a private development company.

This partnership will allow Yoast the freedom to focus on making great plugins, while ensuring that their tools are safe and reliable for website owners. Yoast will reciprocate the service by helping Sucuri continue to expand it’s brand amongst website owners. To date, Yoast has already begun the process of helping Sucuri with it’s online presence by initiating their Diamond website review service. A service in which they provide a deep analysis of the existing structure of the website and expert analysis of it’s SEO presence within the security domain.

The website security space is extremely volatile and, over the last few years, it’s become clear that keeping up with the bad guys is a full time job. I’m excited that Yoast recognizes this new reality and, through this partnership, has shown their commitment to providing their clients with the very best, and most secure, products. In addition, we’ve learned what we’re good at. At Sucuri, we’ve never focused on marketing. We’re a security company built by technologists. With that in mind, if a relationship exists in which, as organizations, we can partner and it can be mutually beneficial, why wouldn’t we do that? Yoast was just the obvious choice for us. With our combined reach we have the ability to do the most good. –Tony Perez, CEO of Sucuri

This partnership extends beyond just code reviews. Sucuri will be an extension of the Yoast development and infrastructure team. The Yoast website, and it’s associated infrastructure, are constant targets by website hackers, Sucuri will be work with them to improve their security posture. This will include configuration of the Sucuri Website AntiVirus which includes the Website Firewall product for complete security.

These products will ensure that Yoast is being protected with Enterprise Level security to repel Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks, prevent vulnerabilities from being exploited, stop malware distribution and provide malware prevention – all while implementing a continuous security monitoring solution to ensure security threats are identified and dealt with quickly.