In April 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 computers with security vulnerabilities).

(Powering millions of websites and blogs worldwide makes WordPress a target for hacking attacks)

In March 2014, many technology sites began reporting that over 160,000+ legitimate WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.

(Over 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 described by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When global attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for people to start questioning just how secure WordPress is as a software for running their sites.

WordPress is frequently the target of attacks by hackers. But do you really 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 definitely consider choosing WordPress if you are concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with some facts …

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

The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is increasing on a daily basis, and the situation is only going to get 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 … regardless of the web platform your website has been built with!

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

Are “Open Source” Applications Safe?

Some people will often try and argue that WordPress is not a safe platform for building and running a business online because its “open source” code is freely available.

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

The argument, then, goes something like this: If anyone can view the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can easily get hold of all of the code and study every single line, looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities that they could exploit …

(It’s not a matter of if, but when before a malicious user will attempt 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 security holes and weaknesses (hackers can do the same with any software application), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source application actually makes it a lot more secure in many ways.

This is because WordPress is supported by a huge volunteer 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 …

(The WordPress software platform is built, maintained and updated by an open community of thousands of web developers. Screenshot source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress evolves through the effort of hundreds of committed individuals working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. It benefits from hundreds of minds who, at any one time, are focused on improving the code, fixing bugs and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

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

As soon as any security weaknesses are discovered by developers or users, these are immediately recorded in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core development team …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is quite formidable and anyone can contribute to securing the software.

For example:

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

This is why the core development team is constantly releasing new updates, and why you continually need to keep your site frequently up-to-date …

(WordPress continually releases new version 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 platform 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, software maintenance, bug fixes and updates.

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

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source Platforms

(CMS Platforms - WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management systems, there is valid research to support the fact that the WordPress CMS is safer than other Open Source CMS platforms such as Drupal and Joomla.

For example, here is one study showing how many security vulnerabilities were found in each of these CMS platforms …

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

Other studies show that, because WordPress is easy to use and maintain, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security vulnerabilities, sites run on WordPress had a significant degree of less exposure to risk …

(WordPress users are not as exposed to risks as other CMS platform users. Source: BlogDefender.com)

WordPress Is Not At Fault

Whenever WordPress sites get attacked, users shouldn’t be quick to place the blame on the WordPress CMS platform.

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

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

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

Of immediate concern is the fact that most security-related problems result from users running WordPress on outdated versions of the software …

(Many security issues come from sites running an outdated WordPress version. Image: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only between 25% – 35% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in third-party code are found in the WordPress core software, while 70% – 85% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

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

Like many software platforms, WordPress is updated regularly in order to address new security issues that could arise. Improving 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 how secure WordPress is has even caused 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 …

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 websites, including banks, large organizations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Areas Affecting WP Security

Other areas that can affect WordPress website security include issues like:

• No platform is completely immune to hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to attack, mostly due to outdated software.
• The main threat of all content management systems seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring good password security practices.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. Security processes need to be regularly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Server setup. For example, sites on shared webhosting are only as secure as the least safe site on the grid, so if someone else on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then every site on the shared server is potentially vulnerable to being hacked also.

There’s No Reason Why You Should Not Use WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is quite secure. As long as you implement basic web security measures and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) updated, there is really 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:  Preventing WordPress Brute Force Attacks

A compromised site provides malicious users with a platform to launch distributed attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to botnets and hackers. Learn more about it here:

• Prevent Malicious Cyber Attacks On Your WP Blogs From Hackers And Botnets

If you are currently using an older WordPress version make sure you back up your WordPress website before updating your software to protect your site from the latest security risks. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore.

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

References Used In This Article

The facts quoted above were referenced from various sources, including those listed 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 build a better business online. To learn more about using WordPress please see our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles are published.

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