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 viruses and programmed to attack other computers with security vulnerabilities).

(Powering millions of websites and blogs around the world makes WordPress an obvious target for malicious attacks by hackers)

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

(Over 160,000 WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)

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

Whenever brute-force attacks on WordPress sites increase in frequency, it’s natural for people to start questioning just how secure WordPress is as a platform for running their websites.

WordPress is the world’s most used content management system making it a frequent target for hacking. But should you be concerned about WordPress as a secure web platform?

In this article, you will learn some of the main reasons why you should choose 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 worldwide is rising, and it’s only going to get 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 you use!

Since it’s no longer 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 Vulnerable?”

Some people will often argue that WordPress is not a safe platform 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 can access the underlying software code.

The argument against WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can view the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily obtain the code and go through every line in detail, looking for holes and weaknesses they could exploit …

(It’s no longer 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 free and hackers can easily access it and study the code searching for weaknesses or vulnerabilities (hackers can do the same with any software application), the fact that WordPress is a free, open application actually makes it a lot more secure in many ways.

This is because WordPress is supported by a large volunteer community comprised of hundreds of people such as software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help to improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

(WordPress is built, maintained and updated by a huge community of thousands of volunteers. Screenshot image: WordPress.org)

WordPress continually evolves because of the effort of a global volunteer community working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from hundreds of web developers, designers and users who, at any one time, are focused on improving the code and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(WordPress is built and maintained by an open community of experienced web developers. Image source: WordPress.org)

As soon as security issues are discovered by developers or users, the WordPress development team are then made aware of it …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is quite formidable and anyone can contribute to the improvement of the platform.

For example:

• If you come across bugs and a security exploit, you can report these by emailing security@wordpress.org.
• If you find issues in a WP plugin, you can report these by emailing plugins@wordpress.org.

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

(WordPress continually releases new updates to plug any security exploits found)

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary CMS 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” CMS platforms 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, modify and use, and hundreds 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 completely free application that they can download, use and modify as they wish?

WordPress Vs Other Open Source CMS Applications

(CMS Platforms - WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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

For example, here is one study showing the number of security vulnerabilities found in popular open source CMS platforms …

(National Vulnerability Database – Security Vulnerabilities IN CMS Platforms. Screenshot source: National Vulnerability Database)

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

(WordPress users are not as exposed to exploits as other CMS platform users. Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)

The WordPress CMS Is Not To Blame

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

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

In fact, over sixty percent of webmasters surveyed for the report didn’t know how their websites had been hacked after an attack …

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

Of immediate concern is the fact that many security-related issues arise from website owners simply not upgrading their WordPress software to the latest version …

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

When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only between 25% – 35% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-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 all robust software applications, WordPress is regularly updated to deal with new security threats that may arise. Improving security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep your WordPress software, plugins, and themes updated to the latest version.

WordPress Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Organizations!

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

In an article 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 web presence, including banks, large organizations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Areas Affecting Security

Other areas that can affect WordPress site security include:

• No platform is completely safe from hackers. 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 weakness of all content management platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring good password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant monitoring. All security systems need to be regularly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Hosting setup. For example, websites on shared hosting accounts are only as secure as the least safe site on the grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then every site on your shared server is potentially vulnerable to hacking also.

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 implement basic website security measures (which all website owners should do) and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) regularly up-to-date, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t choose WordPress.

WordPress Security – Useful Tips

To learn about ways to protect your WordPress site from brute force attacks see this article:  Protecting Your WordPress Site Or Blog From Brute-Force Attacks

A compromised website presents malicious users with a resource for distributed attacks, spreading malware and as a source of information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to botnets and hackers. Go here to learn more:

• A Review Of Blog Defender – WordPress Security Plugin

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

If you don’t want to back up your data manually, 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: Backup, Copy And Keep Your WP Web Sites Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

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 information has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about the security benefits of using WordPress please see our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles or tutorials are published.

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