In early 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 installations with security vulnerabilities).

(WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system making it a target for hacking)

On March 11, 2014, many leading technology sites reported that over 160,000+ legitimate WordPress sites had been hacked.

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Image 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)

According to leading security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

Whenever attacks on WordPress sites seem to increase, it’s natural for people to ask just how secure WordPress is as an application for building and running a business web presence.

Being the world’s most popular content management system makes WordPress a target for hacking attacks. But should you be concerned about WordPress as a secure platform for building your business website?

In this article, you will learn some of the main reasons why you should use WordPress if you have any concerns about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is increasing on a daily basis, and things are getting worse.

You can safely assume that if your website or blog hasn’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 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?

Is An “Open Source” Software Safe?

Many people will often try to argue that WordPress is not a safe platform for running websites because it is “open source” and freely available program.

Open source CMS platforms like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone can have access to the entire underlying 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 obtain all of the code and study every line, looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities they can exploit …

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

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

The reason for this is that WordPress has the support of a volunteer community that consists of thousands of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help improve the program and make WordPress more secure …

(WordPress is built, maintained and updated by a large community of volunteers. Source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress evolves largely through the effort of a global community working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from thousands of web developers, designers and users who, at any one time, are focused on improving the application, fixing bugs and making it safer for every user …

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

The moment any security holes are discovered by developers or users, the WordPress core development team are then made aware of it …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is solid and formidable and anyone can contribute to the process of fixing security issues.

For example:

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

This is the reason why the WordPress community is constantly releasing new updates, and why you need to keep your WordPress site up-to-date …

(WordPress frequently releases new version updates to plug any security issues found)

WordPress Vs Proprietary Applications

Compare what we have just discussed above with proprietary CMS platforms where often the responsibility for maintaining software security, fixing bugs, etc. falls to a small team of developers with limited resources and you will very quickly realize the security benefits of using WordPress to run your business presence online on a secure platform.

The WordPress CMS is 100% free to download, use and modify, and thousands of volunteers and expert developers are continually working to improve the technology. Can a proprietary technology company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver users a completely free platform that they can download, use and modify as they wish?

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source Platforms

(CMS Platforms include WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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

For example, the chart below shows how many security vulnerabilities were found in each of these CMS platforms …

(WordPress has fewer security vulnerabilities than other leading CMS applications. Screenshot source: National Vulnerability Database)

Other research indicates that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and keep up-to-date, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security exploits, sites built with WordPress had significantly less exposure to risk …

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

The WordPress CMS Is Not To Blame

When WordPress sites get attacked en masse, you shouldn’t be too quick to place the blame on WordPress.

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” published by security organizations Commtouch and StopBadware, most website owners have no idea about the threats their websites are exposed to, how to properly secure a website, or how to deal with compromised web security.

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

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

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

(Many WordPress sites use outdated versions. Image 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% – 80% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally …

(WordPress Security Issues. Source: WebDesign.org)

Like all robust web platforms, WordPress is updated regularly in order to address new security issues that can arise. Improving software security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep up to date with the latest version of WordPress.

WordPress … Secure Enough For Banks To Use!

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” 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 use WordPress to build their web presence, including banks, leading brands, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors That Can Affect WordPress Website Security

Other research on issues that play a role in website security point to areas such as:

• No platform is completely protected from security threats. 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 biggest risk of all content management platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security processes need to be frequently monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Hosting server setup. For example, websites on shared webhosting are only as safe as the least safe site on the hosting grid, so if another user has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then every site on the server can potentially become vulnerable.

There’s No Reason Not To 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 commit to implementing basic web security measures (which all website owners should do) and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) regularly updated, there’s really no reason why you should not use WordPress.

WordPress Security – Practical Tips

To learn about ways to protect your WordPress site from brute force attacks see this article:  Preventing WordPress Brute Force Attacks

A vulnerable site presents hackers with a valuable platform for distributed attacks, spreading malware and as a source of information theft. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to botnets and hackers. Go here to learn more:

• How To Secure Your WordPress Site From Botnets & Hackers

If you are using outdated versions of WordPress remember to back up your website fully 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 free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Duplicate And Keep Your WP Web Site Protected With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

References Used In This Article

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 issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about the security benefits of using the WP web content publishing platform please click on links to visit our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles are published.

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