In 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 sites).

(Being the world’s most popular content management system makes WordPress a target for hacking attacks)

In March 2014, many technology sites began reporting that 160,000+ WordPress web sites had been hacked.

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Screenshot source: 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 well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

Whenever brute-force attacks on WordPress sites seem to increase, it’s natural for website owners to start questioning if WordPress really is a secure software for running an online presence.

Being the world’s most popular content management system makes WordPress a target for hacker attacks. But should you be concerned about WordPress as being a secure web platform?

In this article, you will learn some of the main reasons why you should choose WordPress if you are at all concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with the facts …

Thousands of websites and blogs 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 inevitable that at some point in time someone will attempt to hack into your site … 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?

The “Open Source” Argument

Many people will often argue that WordPress cannot be a safe platform for running web sites because its “open source” code is freely available.

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

The argument against using WordPress, then, goes something like this: If everyone can study the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can easily get hold of all of the code and go through every single line in great detail, searching for vulnerabilities in the code that they could exploit …

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

While it’s true that WordPress is free to download and hackers can easily go through the code looking for vulnerabilities or weaknesses that can be exploited (hackers can do the same with any program), 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 has the support of a large community of thousands of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help to improve the program and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, a global volunteer community of hundreds of developers is responsible for keeping the core application maintained and updated. Image: WordPress.org)

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

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

The moment that any security issue is discovered by developers or users, the WordPress core developers are then notified …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is solid and formidable and anybody can contribute to the process of getting vulnerabilities plugged.

For example:

• If you find bugs or a security hole, you can report these by emailing security@wordpress.org.
• If you find issues in a WP plugin, you can also report these by notifying plugins@wordpress.org.

This is one of the reasons why the WordPress community releases new version updates so often, and why you continually need to keep your sites and blogs up-to-date …

(WordPress frequently releases new version updates to address security issues)

WordPress Vs Proprietary CMS Applications

We’ve just seen that one of the security advantages of using an open source platform like WordPress is that users benefit from a large community of developers who continually contribute to make the software more secure. By contrast, a proprietary or “closed-source” CMS platform is typically built 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 thousands of volunteers and expert developers work on improving the technology. 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 CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

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

For example, the chart below shows how many security vulnerabilities were discovered in popular CMS platforms …

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

Other studies show that, because WordPress is easy to use and maintain, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security exploits, sites run on WordPress had fewer exposure to risk …

(WordPress users are less exposed to vulnerabilities than other CMS platform users. Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)

WordPress Should Not Be Blamed

If someone breaks into 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“, a large number of website owners have no idea about the threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or how to deal with security compromises.

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

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

Of immediate concern, however, is the fact that many security issues seem to be related to website owners not upgrading their CMS software to a newer version …

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

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only a small percentage of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are found in the WordPress CMS core, while 65% – 75% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally …

(WP Security Issues. Source: WebDesign.org)

Like all robust web applications, WordPress is updated regularly in order to deal with new security risks that can 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.

WordPress Is Secure – Just Ask Any Bank Using It!

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

In a blog 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, global corporations and e-commerce sites choose WordPress to build their presence online, not just bloggers.

Other Areas Affecting WordPress Blog Security

Other areas that can affect security include factors like:

• No platform is protected from hacking. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to software that is out of date.
• The main security risk in all content management platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. All security systems need to be constantly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Hosting server setup. For example, sites on shared hosting accounts are only as secure as the least safe site on the hosting grid, so if someone else has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then all sites on the server can potentially become vulnerable.

There’s No Reason To Avoid Choosing WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is quite secure. As long as you commit to implementing 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 to avoid using WordPress.

WordPress Security – Useful Tips

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

An unsecured web site presents hackers with a platform for launching distributed attacks, spreading malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to botnets and hackers. Go here to learn more:

• Make Your Site Unseen By Hackers And Botnets With Blog Defender

If you are using outdated WordPress versions remember to make a backup 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 perform manual backups, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Backup, Copy & Protect Your WordPress Web Sites With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

References

The facts quoted above were referenced from various online 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 problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about using WordPress please see our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new content is published.

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