In early 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to a global-scale brute-force attack.

These attacks were caused by botnets (networks of infected computers programmed to attack other vulnerable sites).

(WordPress is the world’s most used CMS making it an obvious target for hackers)

On March 11, 2014, many leading technology sites began reporting that over 160,000+ legitimate WordPress websites had been hacked.

(Over 160,000 WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in March 2014. Screenshot: Blog Defender)

According to the Cnet report,

“With some old-fashioned trickery, hackers were able to get more than 162,000 legitimate WordPress-powered Web sites to mount a distributed-denial-of-service attack against another Web site.”

(Source: cnet.com/news/ddos-attack-is-launched-from-162000-wordpress-sites)

As described by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WP websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When global brute-force attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for people to start asking just how secure the WordPress platform is for running their sites.

WordPress is often the target of attacks by hackers, due to its global popularity. But do you need to be concerned about WordPress as a secure web platform?

In this article, you will learn some of the main reasons why you should consider using WordPress if you are concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with some facts …

Thousands of websites are attacked every year … not just WordPress sites!

The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and things are only going to get worse.

It’s probably safe to assume that if you haven’t been hacked yet, then it’s inevitable that at some point in time someone will attempt to hack into your site … regardless of the web platform you use!

Since it’s not a matter of if, but when before your website is targeted by hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

How Vulnerable Are “Open Source” Software Programs?

Many people often argue that WordPress is not a secure platform for running websites because its open source code means that anyone can view how the software program code works.

Open-source CMS platforms like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone can have access to the entire software code.

The argument against WordPress, then, goes something like this: If everyone can view the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily download all of the code and go through it, looking for holes and weaknesses in the code that could be exploited …

(It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website will be targeted by malicious hackers … WordPress or no WordPress!)

While it’s true that WordPress is a free application and hackers can easily go through the code looking for vulnerabilities or weaknesses (hackers can do the same with any software program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source platform actually makes it a lot more secure in many ways.

This is because WordPress has the support of a community that consists of hundreds of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, a community of thousands of web developers around the world is responsible for keeping the core application up-to-date. Screenshot source: WordPress.org)

WordPress continually evolves largely through the effort of a huge volunteer community working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. Everyone benefits from thousands of individuals dedicated to improving the software, fixing bugs and making WordPress safer for every user …

(WordPress is built and maintained by a global community of volunteers. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

As soon as any security holes are identified by developers or users, these are noted in user forums and addressed by the WordPress development team …

(WordPress is continually being improved by thousands of committed individuals community of web developers and users. Image: make.wordpress.org)

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is solid and formidable and anybody can contribute to the process of addressing security issues.

For example:

• If you discover bugs or security exploits, you can report these by sending an email to security@wordpress.org.
• If you find issues in a WP plugin, you can also report these by notifying plugins@wordpress.org.

This is why the core development team releases new version updates so frequently, and why you continually need to keep your site regularly maintained …

(WordPress frequently releases new version updates to address security exploits)

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary CMS Platforms

Contrast what we have just discussed above with proprietary technologies where often the responsibility for maintaining software security, fixing bugs, etc. falls to a much smaller team of developers with limited resources and you will very quickly understand the value of using WordPress to run your website or blog on a secure platform.

WordPress is 100% free to download, modify and use, and thousands of volunteers and expert developers work on improving the platform. Can a proprietary technology company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver you a completely free CMS software that you can download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms include WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management applications, there is valid research showing that WordPress is actually safer than other Open Source CMS platforms like Drupal and Joomla.

For example, the chart below shows the number of security vulnerabilities found in popular CMS platforms …

(National Vulnerability Database – Security Vulnerabilities IN CMS Platforms. Screenshot: National Vulnerability Database)

Other studies indicate that, because WordPress is easy to use and to keep updated, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security issues, sites run on WordPress had significantly less exposure to risk …

(WordPress users are less exposed to threats than other CMS platform users. Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)

WordPress Should Not Be Blamed

Whenever WordPress sites get attacked en masse, don’t be quick to blame WordPress.

According to a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises called StopBadware and security vendor Commtouch in a published report entitled “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective“, many website owners have no idea about the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or how to deal with compromised web security.

In fact, over sixty percent of webmasters surveyed in this report didn’t even know how their sites had been compromised by hackers after an attack …

(Most webmasters don’t even know how their sites got hacked. Image source: StopBadware.org)

Of immediate concern for WordPress users, however, is the fact that most security problems seem to be related to users running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

(Many WordPress users have not updated their sites. Image source: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only a small percentage of vulnerabilities discovered in third-party code are actually found in the WordPress core software, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions created by third-party developers …

(WordPress Security Issues. Screenshot source: WebDesign.org)

Like many web applications, WordPress is updated regularly to deal with new security issues that can arise. Improving security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep your WordPress software, themes, and plugins updated to the latest version.

WordPress … Good Enough For Banks To Use!

The amount of misinformation online about WordPress security has even led the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, to chime in and reply to posts online.

In an article entitled “A Bank Website on WordPress” posted on April 15, 2015, Matt wrote the following about WordPress security …

There’s a thread on Quora asking “I am powering a bank’s website using WordPress. What security measures should I take?” The answers have mostly been ignorant junk along the lines of “Oh NOES WP is INSECURE! let me take my money out of that bank”, so I wrote one myself, which I’ve copied below.

I agree there’s probably not a ton of benefit to having the online banking / billpay / etc portion of a bank’s website on WordPress, however there is no reason you couldn’t run the front-end and marketing side of the site on WordPress, and in fact you’d be leveraging WordPress’ strength as a content management platform that is flexible, customizable, and easy to update and maintain.

Matt then goes on to provide a couple of security tips, before stating the following …

For an example of a beautiful, responsive banking website built on WordPress, check out Gateway Bank of Mesa AZ. WordPress is also trusted to run sites for some of the largest and most security-conscious organizations in the world, including Facebook, SAP, Glenn Greenwald’s The Intercept, eBay, McAfee, Sophos, GNOME, Mozilla, MIT, Reuters, CNN, Google Ventures, NASA, and literally hundreds more.

As the most widely used CMS in the world, many people use and deploy the open source version of WordPress in a sub-optimal and insecure way, but the same could be said of Linux, Apache, MySQL, Node, Rails, Java, or any widely-used software. It is possible and actually not that hard to run WordPress in a way that is secure enough for a bank, government site, media site, or anything.

Millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to build their presence online, including banks, leading brands, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Areas That Can Affect Site Security

Other areas that can affect security include issues such as:

• No platform is immune to hacking. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to using software that is out of date.
• The biggest security threat of all content management systems seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant monitoring. All security systems need to be constantly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Server setup. For example, websites on shared hosting servers are only as secure as the least secure website on the grid, so if someone else has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then all sites on that server are potentially vulnerable to hacking also.

There’s No Reason Not To Use WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is as secure as most other leading web platforms being used by businesses of all sizes to build their presence online. As long as you implement basic web security measures (which all website owners should do, regardless of their chosen web platform) and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) updated, there is really no reason why you shouldn’t use WordPress to run your web site or blog.

WordPress Security – Practical Tips

To learn about ways to protect your WordPress site from brute-force attacks see this article:  WordPress Brute Force Attack Prevention Measures

A vulnerable blog offers hackers with a valuable resource for distributed attacks, spreading malware and as a source of information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets. Learn more about this plugin here:

• Blog Defender – Make Your Blog Unseen By Hackers And Bots

If you are using older versions of WordPress make sure you make a backup before updating your software to protect your site from the latest security threats. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore.

If you don’t want to back up your data manually, there are many WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Copy & Protect Your WP Websites With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

Article References

For more information on the above, refer to the sites below:

• ITProPortal.com
• National Vulnerability Database
• BlogDefender.com
• UpAndUpStudios.com
• StopBadware.org
• Sucuri.net
• WebDesign.org
• Quora.com
• Ma.tt

Hopefully, the above post has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about the security benefits of using the WordPress CMS software please click on links to visit our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new content is published.

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