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

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

(WordPress powers millions of websites and blogs worldwide, which makes it a natural target for hacker attacks)

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

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Source: BlogDefender website)

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.

Whenever global brute force attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for people to start questioning if WordPress really is a safe application for running websites.

Powering millions of sites worldwide makes WordPress an obvious target for attempted hacker attacks. But do you need to be concerned about WordPress as being a secure web platform?

In this article, you will learn some of the main reasons why you should definitely consider using WordPress if you have any concerns about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at some facts …

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

The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and the situation is getting worse.

You can safely assume that if your website or blog hasn’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time … regardless of the web platform your website has been built with!

Since it’s not a matter of if, but when before someone will try to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

”How Can Open Source Applications Be Secured?”

Some people will often try and argue that WordPress cannot be a safe platform for running web sites because it’s “open source” and freely available software application.

Open-source CMS software like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone has access to the underlying code.

The argument against using WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can examine the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily download all of the code and go through every line in detail, looking for security holes in the code that they could exploit …

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but when before your website is targeted by malicious hackers … WordPress or no WordPress!)

While it’s true that WordPress is a free application and hackers can easily access it and study the code searching for holes or weaknesses (hackers can do the same with any program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open software platform actually makes it a lot more secure in several ways.

The reason for this is that WordPress has the support of a volunteer community comprised of thousands of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help to improve the program and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, the core application is built, maintained and updated by a community of developers. Screenshot source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress continually evolves because of the effort of a global community working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from hundreds of individuals who, at any one time, are focused on improving the application and making it safer for every user …

(WordPress is built by a large community of WordPress users. Screenshot image: make.wordpress.org)

The moment any security holes are discovered by developers or users, the WordPress core development team are then notified …

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

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

For example:

• If you find bugs and a security vulnerability, you can report these by notifying security@wordpress.org.
• If you find issues in a WordPress plugin, you can report these by notifying plugins@wordpress.org.

This is one of the reasons why the WordPress community releases new security updates regularly, and why you need to keep your WordPress sites and blogs regularly updated …

(WordPress frequently releases new updates to plug any security weaknesses found)

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary CMS Applications

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

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

WordPress Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management applications, there is valid research to support the fact that the WordPress CMS 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 each of these platforms during a given period …

(National Vulnerability Database – Security Vulnerabilities IN CMS Applications. Image: National Vulnerability Database)

Other studies show that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and keep up-to-date, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security issues, sites run on WordPress had fewer exposure to risk …

(BlogDefender.com – CMS Tests. Image source: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame The Technology

When WordPress sites get attacked, you shouldn’t be quick to blame the WordPress CMS platform.

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

In fact, 63% of webmasters surveyed in this report didn’t even know how their websites had been compromised after an attack …

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

Of immediate concern, however, is the fact that many security-related problems result from users running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

(Many WordPress sites use outdated versions. Screenshot: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only a small percentage of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are actually found in the WordPress CMS core, while 65% – 75% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

(WP Security Issues. Screenshot: WebDesign.org)

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

WordPress Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Businesses!

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 a blog post entitled “A Bank Website on WordPress” posted on April 15, 2015, Matt wrote the following about WordPress …

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 choose WordPress to build their presence online, including banks, large organizations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors Affecting Security

Other studies on issues that play a role in website security point to areas such as:

• No platform is safe from hacking. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to using outdated software.
• The biggest vulnerability in all content management systems seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore strong password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security systems need to be constantly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Webhosting setup. For example, sites on shared webhosting are only as safe as the least safe site on the hosting grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site broken into, then every site on the server can potentially become vulnerable.

There Is No Reason To Avoid Using WordPress

As you can see, 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 remember to implement basic web security measures (which all website owners should do) and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) regularly up-to-date, there’s no reason why you should not use WordPress.

WordPress Security – Useful Tips

To learn about ways to protect your WordPress site from brute force attacks see this article:  Protect Your WordPress Website From Brute Force Attacks

A vulnerable web site presents malicious users with a valuable platform for distributed attacks, spreading malware and as a source of information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks. Go here to learn more:

• Prevent Bots & Hackers From Attacking Your Site

If you are currently using an outdated WordPress version remember to make a complete backup before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore everything to its former settings.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of free and paid plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here: Back Up, Clone & Keep Your WordPress Web Sites Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

References Used In This Article

For more information on the above, see the following sources:

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

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To learn more about using the WordPress content publishing platform please click on links to visit other articles we have published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles are published.

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