Is Wix or Squarespace Secure? What They Do & Don't Cover

Originally published on the Bug Circuit blog.

Yes, Wix and Squarespace are secure at the infrastructure level — but that only covers part of the risk, and the rest is on you. Both platforms patch servers, run your site over HTTPS, and guard against the classic hosting-level attacks. Neither one protects a weak login password, a sketchy embedded script, a missing email record, or a page you forgot was still public.

This is for owners running a small business, portfolio, or online store on Wix or Squarespace who want a straight answer: what's actually covered, what isn't, and what to check this week. You'll walk away with a concrete hardening checklist, not just reassurance.

What Wix and Squarespace Actually Secure For You

Both companies run closed, managed platforms — you don't touch a server, install patches, or configure a firewall, because they do it centrally for every site on the platform. That buys you real protection:

• Automatic HTTPS/SSL on every domain, including custom domains, with certificates renewed for you.
• Server and software patching handled centrally — you're never running an outdated CMS core like you would with self-hosted WordPress.
• DDoS mitigation and network-level filtering at the hosting layer.
• PCI DSS-compliant payment processing if you use their built-in checkout, so you're not storing card numbers yourself.

Wix publishes its practices at wix.com/about/security and Squarespace at squarespace.com/security — both are worth a skim if a client ever sends you a security questionnaire.

What this buys you is protection against the kind of attack that hits self-hosted CMS platforms hardest: an unpatched plugin or core file getting exploited directly. That specific risk mostly disappears on Wix or Squarespace. It does not mean the site can't be compromised — it means the compromise happens somewhere else.

Where the Real Risk Actually Sits

The pattern: the platform secures its own infrastructure. Everything you configure on top of it — accounts, embeds, DNS, page visibility — is yours to lock down. That's true of every hosted builder, not a knock against Wix or Squarespace specifically.

Your Account Is the Weakest Point, Not Their Servers

Most real-world Wix and Squarespace compromises don't involve hacking the platform at all — they involve someone getting into your account. Attackers don't need to break encryption if they can just log in.

1. Turn on two-factor authentication (2FA). In Wix, go to Account Settings → Sign In & Security → Two-Factor Authentication. In Squarespace, it's under Account → Security → Two-Step Verification. This single step blocks the most common account-takeover method: a reused or leaked password.
2. Use a unique, long password for your builder account — not one shared with any other site. NIST's password guidelines recommend length over complexity: a random 16+ character passphrase beats "P@ssw0rd1!".
3. Audit collaborator access. Both platforms let you add team members with different permission levels. Remove ex-contractors and freelancers as soon as a project ends — check Wix's Roles & Permissions or Squarespace's Contributors list.
4. Watch for phishing emails that mimic Wix or Squarespace login pages. These platforms are common phishing targets precisely because so many small businesses run on them.

Risky Embeds and Third-Party Apps

Wix's App Market and Squarespace's extensions let you bolt on chat widgets, booking tools, review plugins, and marketing pixels in a couple of clicks. Convenient — and also the most common way a hosted site gets something malicious injected into it.

An embedded third-party script runs in your visitors' browsers with the same trust as your own content. If that script is compromised, outdated, or was never legitimate to begin with, it can skim form data, redirect visitors, or inject unwanted content — a pattern OWASP documents broadly under cross-site scripting (XSS), where injected script runs in the context of a trusted page.

Before adding any embed or custom code block:

• Only install apps from the official Wix App Market or Squarespace Extensions — never a script copy-pasted from a random tutorial or forum post.
• Check the app's last update date and review count. Abandoned apps are a common weak point.
• Remove embeds you no longer use — a dead chat widget or old A/B testing script is still a live piece of code running on every page.
• If you use a custom Code Injection block (Squarespace) or embed HTML widget (Wix), know exactly what every line does, or have someone who does review it.

Our security headers checker will show you what protections your live site is actually sending, including whether a Content-Security-Policy is limiting what third-party scripts can do.

DNS and Email Spoofing: The Silent Risk

This is the part almost every small business owner misses, because it has nothing to do with the website itself — it's about your domain's email records.

When you point a custom domain at Wix or Squarespace, you also control DNS records that determine who's allowed to send email as your domain. If those records are missing or misconfigured, anyone can forge an email that appears to come from you — invoicing your customers, phishing your team, or damaging your domain's reputation.

The three records that matter:

• SPF — lists which mail servers are allowed to send for your domain (e.g. v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all).
• DKIM — a cryptographic signature proving an email wasn't altered in transit.
• DMARC — tells receiving mail servers what to do with messages that fail SPF/DKIM checks, e.g. v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:reports@yourdomain.com.

CISA has directed U.S. federal agencies to enforce DMARC specifically because unauthenticated domains are so easy to spoof — see CISA Binding Operational Directive 18-01. The same logic applies to any business domain. Run our email spoofing checker to see in under a minute whether your domain can currently be impersonated.

Pages You Forgot Were Public

Wix and Squarespace make it easy to spin up draft pages, staging content, old landing pages, or "unlisted" pages that aren't in your navigation menu. Unlisted is not the same as private — an unlisted page is still reachable by anyone who has or guesses the URL, and can still get indexed by search engines or found by an automated scanner.

Quick check:

1. Search site:yourdomain.com in Google and skim every result — anything you don't recognize needs a look.
2. In your site editor, review the full page list (not just the nav menu) for anything old, unfinished, or duplicated.
3. Password-protect or delete pages containing pricing drafts, internal notes, or test content instead of just unlisting them.
4. Check for old subdomains or preview URLs (like a *.wixsite.com staging link) that are still live after you launched the real domain.

If you're not sure what's currently exposed, our free website security check scans the live, public-facing surface of your site — no login or card required — and gives you a plain-English yes/no on anything critical.

Key takeaways

• Wix and Squarespace secure the servers, SSL, and payment processing — they do not secure your account, embeds, DNS, or forgotten pages.
• Turn on two-factor authentication today; weak or reused passwords are the most common way hosted sites actually get compromised.
• Audit every third-party app and embed for legitimacy and remove ones you no longer use.
• Add or verify SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records so nobody can spoof email from your domain.
• Search site:yourdomain.com periodically to catch unlisted or forgotten pages before someone else finds them.

If you've worked through this list and want a second, human set of eyes — someone who actually clicks through your site the way an attacker would rather than running an automated scan — that's exactly what Circuit is: a $49 one-time manual audit with a full written report of what's wrong and exactly how to fix it. If you're still not sure whether your setup needs a closer look, start with our guide on whether your website is hackable or, if something already looks off, see what to do if your website's been hacked.