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

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

(WordPress often is targeted by hackers)

In March 2014, technology sites began reporting that over 162,000 WordPress-powered websites had been hacked.

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

When worldwide attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for people to start asking if WordPress really is a secure application for running a business web presence.

WordPress is the world’s most used CMS making it an obvious target for hacker attacks. But should you really be concerned about WordPress as a secure platform for building your business presence online?

In this article, you will learn some of the main reasons why you should definitely consider choosing WordPress if you are at all 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 rising, and this is 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 not a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website will be targeted by hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

Is “Open Source” Software Safe?

Some people will often try and argue that WordPress should not be used for building and running a website or blog because its “open source” code is freely available.

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

The argument against using WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can examine the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily obtain all of the code and study every single line, searching for security holes that can be exploited …

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

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

This is because WordPress is supported by a huge volunteer community of thousands of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

(A large community of hundreds of developers build, maintain and update. Image: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress continually evolves because of the effort of hundreds of committed volunteers working around the clock to fix issues. It benefits from hundreds of web developers, designers and users who are dedicated to improving the code, fixing bugs and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built and maintained by a large community of experienced web developers. Image: WordPress.org)

The moment that any security vulnerability is discovered by developers or users, these are then noted in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core developers …

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

The WordPress community support system is very responsive and anybody can help contribute to improving the platform.

For example:

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

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

(WordPress continually releases new version updates to address any security issues found)

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary CMS Platforms

Compare the benefits of using an open source CMS technology like WordPress 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 quickly realize the security benefits of using WordPress to run your business presence online on a secure platform.

WordPress is free to download, modify and use, and hundreds of volunteers and expert developers are continually working to improve the technology. Can a proprietary CMS company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver you software that is 100% free to download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management systems, research shows that the WordPress CMS is 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 given period …

(WordPress has fewer security vulnerabilities than other leading CMS platforms. Screenshot: National Vulnerability Database)

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

(WordPress is more secure than other CMS applications. Image source: BlogDefender.com)

WordPress Is Not Always To Blame

If someone compromises the security of your WordPress site, don’t be quick to place the blame on the WordPress CMS platform.

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“, a large number of webmasters have no idea about the threats their websites are exposed to, how to properly secure a website, or how to deal with compromised web security.

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

(Many webmasters don’t know how their sites were hacked. Screenshot image: StopBadware.org)

Of immediate concern for WordPress users, however, is the fact that most security issues seem to be related to users running WordPress on outdated versions of the software …

(Many WordPress users have not upgraded their software. Image source: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only around between 20% – 35% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are found in the WordPress core software, while 65% – 85% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions created by 3rd-party developers …

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

Like all robust web platforms, WordPress is regularly updated in order to deal with new security risks that could arise. Improving software security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep your WordPress site, themes, and plugins updated to the latest version.

WordPress Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Businesses!

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” 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, including banks, large organizations and e-commerce sites use WordPress to build their websites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors Affecting Website Security

Other areas that can affect site security include issues like:

• No platform is immune to security threats. 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 main threat in all CMS 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.
• Server setup. For example, sites on shared hosting servers are only as secure as the least secure website on the hosting grid, so if someone else on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then all sites on your server become vulnerable to hacking also.

There Is No Reason Not To Choose WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is a secure web platform. As long as you implement basic security measures and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) regularly updated, there’s no reason to avoid choosing WordPress.

WordPress Security – Useful Tips

To learn about ways to protect your WordPress site from brute force attacks see this article:  Ten Things You Can Do To Prevent Brute-Force Attacks On WordPress

A compromised website presents hackers 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 hackers and bots. Learn more about it here:

• How To Prevent Malicious Cyber Attacks On Your WP Blogs From Hackers And Bots

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

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

References Used In This Article

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, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To learn more about using the WP CMS software please see other posts published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles or tutorials are published.

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