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

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

(WordPress powers millions of websites around the world, making it a natural target for malicious attempts by hackers)

On March 11, 2014, technology sites reported that over 162,000 WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.

(Over 160,000 WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in March 2014. Image source: 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 reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

Whenever global attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for people to question if WordPress really is a safe application for running their sites.

WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system making it an obvious target for hacking attempts. But should you be concerned about WordPress as a secure web platform?

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

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at some facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and it’s getting worse.

It’s probably safe to assume that if your website or blog hasn’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time before someone attempts to hack into your site … regardless of the web platform your website has been built with!

Since it’s no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when before a malicious user will try to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

”Isn’t Open Source Software Highly Vulnerable?”

Many people argue that WordPress cannot be a secure platform for running web sites because it is “open source” and freely available software application.

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

The argument, then, goes something like this: If anyone can examine the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can easily download the code and go through every single line, looking for security weaknesses that can be exploited …

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but when before someone attempts to hack your website … 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 and 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 several ways.

This is because WordPress is supported by an open community that consists of hundreds of people such as software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, a huge community of thousands of web developers around the world is responsible for keeping the software code updated. Image: WordPress.org)

WordPress evolves because of the effort of thousands of committed individuals working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. Everyone benefits from hundreds of minds who, at any one time, are focused on improving the application and making WordPress safer for every user …

(WordPress is built and maintained by a large community of users. Screenshot: WordPress.org)

As soon as any security hole is discovered by developers or users, these are then reported in user forums and addressed by the WordPress developers …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is solid and formidable and anyone can contribute to improving the platform.

For example:

• If you come across bugs or a security exploit, you can report these by sending an email to security@wordpress.org.
• If you find any issues in a WordPress plugin, you can report these by notifying plugins@wordpress.org.

This is why the WordPress community releases new updates so often, and why you need to keep your sites and blogs up-to-date …

(WordPress frequently releases new updates to address security exploits)

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary Platforms

We’ve just seen that one of the security advantages of using an ”open” platform like WordPress is that users benefit from a large community of developers who continually contribute to improve software security. By contrast, a proprietary or “closed-source” CMS platform is typically built by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, maintenance services, bug fixes and software fixes.

The WordPress CMS is 100% free to download, modify and use, and thousands of volunteers and expert developers are continually working to improve the software. Can a proprietary CMS company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver users a completely free platform that they can download, use and modify as they wish?

WordPress Vs Other Open Source Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management applications, there is valid research to support the fact 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 discovered in popular platforms during a certain period …

(WordPress has less security vulnerabilities than other leading CMS applications. Screenshot source: National Vulnerability Database)

Other research indicates that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and to update, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security exploits, sites built with WordPress had a significant degree of less exposure to risk …

(BlogDefender.com – CMS Tests. Source: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame WordPress

If someone hacks into your WordPress site, don’t be quick to blame the WordPress CMS platform.

According to security organizations Commtouch and StopBadware in a published report entitled “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective“, most website owners are not fully aware of the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to properly secure a website, or how to deal with security compromises.

In fact, 63% of webmasters surveyed for the report didn’t know how their websites had been hacked after an attack …

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

Of more immediate concern is the fact that many security issues seem to be related to users running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

(Many WordPress users have not upgraded their WP sites. Screenshot image: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only a small percentage of vulnerabilities discovered in third-party code are actually found in the WordPress CMS core, while 65% – 80% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally …

(WordPress Security Issues. Image: WebDesign.org)

Like many modern software platforms, WordPress is updated regularly in order to address new security issues that may arise. Improving software security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep up to date with the latest version of WordPress.

WordPress Is Secure – Just Ask Any Bank That Uses It!

The amount of misinformation about how secure WordPress is has even caused the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, to chime in and reply to posts online.

In a post entitled “A Bank Website on WordPress” published 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 use WordPress to build their web presence, including banks, global corporations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Issues Affecting Security

Other areas that can affect blog security include factors like:

• No platform is completely immune to hacking. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to outdated software.
• The main weakness of all content management platforms seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore strong password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security processes require frequent monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Webhosting server setup. For example, sites on shared hosting accounts are only as safe as the least secure site on the grid, so if another user has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then every site on that shared server is potentially vulnerable to being hacked as well.

There’s No Reason Not To Choose WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is a secure web platform. As long as you commit to implementing basic security measures and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) regularly updated, there is really no reason why you shouldn’t use WordPress for 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:  Preventing WordPress Brute Force Attacks

An unsecured website provides malicious users with a platform to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin for WordPress makes your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks. Go here to learn more:

• How To Prevent Malicious Cyber Attacks On Your WordPress Web Site By Hackers

If you are using older versions of WordPress remember to back up everything before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore everything to its former state.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Back Up, Clone & Protect Your WP Websites With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

References

The above statistics were sourced from the following sites:

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

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business web site please see our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles or tutorials are published.

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