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

These attacks were caused by botnets (computers infected with malware and programmed to attack other sites with security vulnerabilities).

(Powering millions of websites and blogs around the world makes WordPress a target for attacks by malicious users)

On March 11, 2014, many leading technology sites began reporting that over 162,000 WordPress-powered web sites had been hacked.

(Over 160,000 WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Image: 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 WP web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When worldwide brute force attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for website owners to start questioning if WordPress really is a secure platform for running their sites.

WordPress is frequently the target of malicious attempts by hackers. But do you 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 using WordPress if you are at all concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with some facts …

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

The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is increasing on a daily basis, and it’s only going to get worse.

It’s 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 no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website will be targeted by malicious hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

”How Can Open Source Software Applications Be Secured?”

Many people will often argue that WordPress cannot be a secure platform for building and running a website or blog because it’s an “open source” and freely available software program.

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

The argument against WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can examine the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily get hold of all of the code and go through it in detail, searching for security weaknesses that could be exploited …

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

While it’s true that WordPress is free and hackers can easily go through the code searching for security holes and vulnerabilities they can exploit (hackers can do the same with any program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source application actually makes it more secure in a number of ways.

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

(With WordPress, a large community of volunteers worldwide is responsible for keeping the platform code maintained and updated. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress continually evolves largely through the effort of hundreds of committed individuals working around the clock to fix issues. It benefits from thousands of individuals who are dedicated to improving the software, fixing bugs and making WordPress safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built and maintained by a global community of WordPress users. Image source: WordPress.org)

The moment any security weaknesses are discovered by developers or users, these are immediately recorded in user forums and addressed by the WordPress developers …

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

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

For example:

• If you discover 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 report these by sending an email to plugins@wordpress.org.

This is why the WordPress team is constantly releasing new version updates, and why you need to keep your site regularly updated …

(WordPress frequently releases new version updates to plug security vulnerabilities)

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 make the software more secure. By contrast, proprietary or “closed-source” CMS applications are normally built by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, maintenance services, bug fixes and software fixes.

WordPress is free to download, use and modify, and thousands of volunteers and expert developers work on improving the platform. Can a proprietary technology company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver you a free platform that you can download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress Vs Other Open Source CMS Applications

(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 Open Source CMS platforms such as 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 source: National Vulnerability Database)

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

(Blog Defender – CMS Tests. Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame The Technology

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

According to security vendor Commtouch and StopBadware, a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises 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 properly secure a website, or deal with compromised web security.

In fact, over 60% of webmasters surveyed in this report didn’t know how their sites had been compromised by hackers after an attack …

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

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

(Many WordPress sites are running on outdated versions. Image source: Sucuri.net)

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

(WordPress Security Issues. Image: WebDesign.org)

Like many modern software platforms, WordPress is updated regularly in order to deal with new security threats that can arise. Improving security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep your WordPress software, themes, and plugins up-to-date.

WordPress Is Secure – Even Banks Use It!

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

In an article 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 around the world, including banks, leading brands and e-commerce sites use WordPress to build their presence online, not just bloggers.

Other Areas That Can Affect Security

Other issues that can affect blog security include:

• No platform is completely immune to hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to using outdated software.
• The main threat of all CMS platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. Security systems need to be regularly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Webhosting setup. For example, websites on shared webhosting servers are only as safe as the least secure site on the hosting grid, so if someone else has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then every site on that server can potentially become vulnerable to being hacked also.

There’s No Reason To Avoid Choosing WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is quite secure. As long as you remember to implement basic security measures (which all website owners should do) and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) regularly updated, there is no reason to avoid using WordPress to power 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:  Ten Security Measures That Can Help Prevent Brute-Force Attacks On Your WordPress Site Or Blog

An unsecured website offers malicious users with a resource for denial of service attacks, spreading malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets. Learn more about it here:

• How To Make Your Websites Invisible To Hackers With Blog Defender

If you are currently using an outdated WordPress version remember to make a complete backup 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 WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here: Back Up, Duplicate And Keep Your WP Web Sites Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

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, the above 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 WordPress please click on links to visit our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles or tutorials are published.

***