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

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

(WordPress is often the target of malicious attacks by hackers)

In March 2014, many leading technology sites reported that over 162,000 WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in March 2014. Image source: BlogDefender site)

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 sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

Whenever worldwide attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for website owners to start questioning if WordPress really is a safe software for running an online presence.

WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS making it an obvious target for hacking. But do you really need to 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 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 sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and things are getting worse.

You can safely assume that if you haven’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time before someone does attempt to hack into your site … regardless of the web platform you use!

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

”Isn’t Open Source Software Unsafe?”

Some people will often try and argue that WordPress is not a safe platform for building and running websites or blogs 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 software code.

The argument against using WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can access the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can easily get hold of the code and go through every single line in detail, searching for security weaknesses in the code that can be exploited …

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when before someone attempts to hack your website … WordPress or no WordPress!)

While it’s true that WordPress is a free program and hackers can easily access it and study the code looking for weaknesses or vulnerabilities they can exploit (hackers can do the same with any software), the fact that WordPress is a free, open software platform actually makes it more secure in a number of ways.

The reason for this is that WordPress is supported by a community that consists of hundreds of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help to improve the program and make WordPress more secure …

(A global community is responsible for building and updating WordPress. Image: WordPress.org)

WordPress continually evolves through the effort of a global community working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. Everyone benefits from hundreds of web developers, designers and users dedicated to improving the software, identifying and fixing security issues and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

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

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

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

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

For example:

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

This is the reason why the WordPress team is constantly releasing new version updates, and why you continually need to keep your WordPress sites and blogs frequently updated …

(WordPress continually releases new version updates to address security weaknesses)

WordPress 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 code security. By contrast, proprietary or “closed-source” CMS platforms are 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 hundreds of volunteers and expert developers work on improving the software. Can a proprietary CMS company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver you a free CMS application that you can download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms include WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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

For example, here is one study showing the number of security vulnerabilities discovered in each of these CMS platforms …

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

Other studies also indicate that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and to update, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security vulnerabilities, WordPress sites had fewer exposure to risk …

(WordPress has less exposure to risk than other leading CMS applications. Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame WordPress

If someone hacks into your WordPress site, don’t be too 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“, many website owners have no idea about the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or deal with compromised web security.

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

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

Of immediate concern is the fact that many security problems seem to be related to website owners running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

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

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only around between 20% – 30% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in third-party code are actually found in the WordPress core software, while 65% – 80% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

(WordPress Security Issues. Screenshot: WebDesign.org)

Like many modern web 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 software, themes, plugins, etc..

WordPress … Secure Enough For Banks To Use!

The amount of misinformation about how secure WordPress is has even led Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, to chime into the online debate.

In a blog post 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, global corporations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors Affecting WP Website Security

Other areas that can affect WordPress blog security include:

• No platform is safe from hacking. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to attack, mostly due to using software that is out of date.
• The biggest risk of all web platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security practices.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. Security systems need frequent monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Server setup. For example, websites on shared hosting accounts are only as secure as the least safe website on the grid, so if someone else on your shared server gets their site broken into, then every site on that shared server is potentially vulnerable.

There’s No Reason Why You Shouldn’t Choose WordPress

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

WordPress Security – 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 offers malicious users with a resource to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and use your site to defraud online users. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots. Go here to learn more:

• Protect Your WP Site From Hackers With Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin

If you are currently using an older version of WordPress make sure you back up your WordPress files before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore your website to its previous settings.

If you don’t want to back up your data manually, there are a number of plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Backup, Duplicate & Keep Your WP Websites Protected With Backup Creator WP Plugin

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, now you have 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 website please click on links to visit other posts we have published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles or tutorials are published.

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