Securing Your Webflow Website

Securing Your Webflow Website – The Must-Have Settings

Launching a website in Webflow is exciting: your design looks sharp, your content is live, and everything works seamlessly. But good design alone isn’t enough. Security is just as important – both to protect your visitors and to safeguard your business.

Fortunately, Webflow makes it easy to improve your site’s security with a few key settings. In this article, we’ll go beyond the basics, explain why these settings matter, and highlight both their advantages and potential drawbacks.

1. SSL – Secure Sockets Layer

What it does:
Enabling SSL forces your site to run over HTTPS instead of HTTP. This means all data exchanged between your visitor’s browser and your site is encrypted, protecting against eavesdropping and tampering.

Benefits:

• Visitors see the secure padlock icon in their browser, building trust.
• Helps SEO, as Google prioritizes HTTPS-enabled sites.
• Protects sensitive data like form submissions.

Possible drawbacks:

• SSL requires proper configuration of all assets. If external scripts or images are loaded via plain HTTP, browsers may block them or show warnings.
• Some older browsers and legacy systems may have compatibility issues, though this is increasingly rare.

2. HSTS for Subdomains

What it does:
HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) tells browsers to always connect to your domain and its subdomains over HTTPS, never HTTP.

Benefits:

• Eliminates the risk of a “man-in-the-middle” attack where a malicious actor forces an insecure HTTP connection.
• Ensures consistency across your entire domain, including subdomains like blog.example.com or app.example.com.

Possible drawbacks:

• If you forget to set up SSL correctly on a subdomain, it will become unreachable.
• Migrating away from HTTPS (very rare) becomes more complex, as browsers will force HTTPS until the HSTS policy expires.

3. HSTS Preload Header

What it does:
With the HSTS preload header, your domain is added to a global list built into major browsers. This list forces browsers to connect only via HTTPS, even on a visitor’s very first connection attempt.

Benefits:

• Provides maximum protection against downgrade attacks and insecure HTTP requests.
• Guarantees visitors never accidentally load your site insecurely.

Possible drawbacks:
⚠️ Danger note: If your site has any HTTP resources or misconfigured subdomains, enabling preload will cause those parts to be completely unreachable. Once your domain is submitted to the preload list, it’s very hard to undo – changes may take weeks or months to propagate.

• Requires extra diligence when managing subdomains, redirects, or future infrastructure changes.

4. Secure Frame Headers

What it does:
This setting adds an HTTP header (X-Frame-Options or Content-Security-Policy: frame-ancestors) that prevents your site from being embedded inside an iframe on another domain. This blocks clickjacking attacks where a malicious site overlays invisible iframes to trick users into clicking on something they shouldn’t.

Benefits:

• Protects users against clickjacking exploits.
• Ensures your content cannot be misused in hidden frames on other sites.

Possible drawbacks:

• Your site cannot be intentionally embedded in iframes either. This may be a problem if:
  • You want to integrate your site into a partner’s portal.
  • You use iframes internally for dashboards, previews, or widgets.
• Requires careful consideration if embedding is part of your business use case.

Conclusion: Security by Default, Awareness by Design

Enabling SSL, HSTS, preload headers, and secure frame headers in Webflow dramatically increases your site’s security posture. For most businesses, these should be switched on by default.

However, security settings aren’t without trade-offs. Each comes with potential drawbacks – from breaking embedded content to making misconfigured subdomains unreachable. The key is to understand the implications and test thoroughly before and after enabling them.

At Iridium Works, we recommend a structured rollout:

1. Start with SSL (always on).
2. Add HSTS once all subdomains are HTTPS-ready.
3. Consider HSTS Preload only if you’re confident your setup is airtight.
4. Enable secure frame headers if you don’t need embedding.

With these measures in place, your Webflow site won’t just look great – it will be a secure, reliable foundation for your business.