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

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

(WordPress powers millions of websites and blogs worldwide, which makes it a natural target for attempted hacking attacks)

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

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

Whenever attacks on WordPress sites increase in frequency, it’s natural for people to start asking if WordPress really is a secure software for running their websites.

WordPress is often the target of malicious attacks by hackers, due to its global popularity. 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 definitely consider choosing WordPress if you are at all concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with the facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is rising, and things are getting worse.

It’s probably safe to assume that if your website or blog hasn’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time before someone attempts 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 hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

How Vulnerable Are “Open Source” Software Programs?

Many people will often try to argue that WordPress is not a secure platform for building and running a business online because it is “open source” and freely available software program.

Open source CMS software like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone has access to the entire software code.

The argument, then, goes something like this: If everyone can study the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily obtain all of the code and go through every single line in great detail, looking for holes and weaknesses they can exploit …

(It’s not 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 program and hackers can easily go through the code looking for security holes and weaknesses that can be exploited (hackers can do the same with any software), the fact that WordPress is a free, open software platform actually makes it a lot more secure in several ways.

This is because WordPress is supported by a large community of thousands of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

(A huge community of hundreds of web developers worldwide is responsible for building, maintaining and updating WordPress. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress evolves because of the effort of thousands of committed individuals working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from hundreds of web developers, designers and users dedicated to improving the software, fixing bugs and making WordPress safer for every user …

(WordPress is built by a large community of web developers. Image: WordPress.org)

The moment any security holes are identified by developers or users, the WordPress core development team are then notified …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is very responsive and anybody can help contribute to the process of addressing security issues.

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 also report these by sending an email to plugins@wordpress.org.

This is one of the reasons why WordPress is constantly releasing new updates, and why you continually need to keep your WordPress site frequently up-to-date …

(WordPress continually releases new updates to address security weaknesses)

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary Applications

Compare the benefits of using an open source CMS technology like WordPress 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 quickly realize the security benefits of using WordPress to run your website or blog on a secure platform.

The WordPress CMS is free to download, modify and use, and hundreds of volunteers and expert developers are continually working to improve the platform. 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 Vs Other Open Source Applications

(CMS Platforms)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management applications, there is valid research to support the fact 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 each of these open source platforms during a certain period …

(WordPress experiences less security vulnerabilities than other CMS applications. Image: National Vulnerability Database)

Other research shows that, because WordPress is easy to use and to maintain, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security exploits, WordPress sites had less exposure to risk …

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

Don’t Blame The Technology

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

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“, most webmasters have no idea about the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to properly secure a website, or deal with security compromises.

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

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

Of more immediate concern is the fact that most security-related issues result from website owners forgetting to update their CMS software to the latest version …

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

When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only between 20% – 35% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in third-party code are found in the WordPress core software, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions created by third-party developers …

(WP Security Issues. Screenshot: WebDesign.org)

Like many web applications, WordPress is updated regularly to address new security risks that may arise. Improving security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep your WordPress software, themes, and plugins updated to the latest version.

WordPress Is Secure – Just Ask Any Bank That Uses It!

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

In a blog post entitled “A Bank Website on WordPress” published 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 around the world, including banks, global corporations and e-commerce sites use WordPress to build their websites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors Affecting Security

Other research on issues that play a role in website security point to things like:

• No platform is 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 main vulnerability of all content management systems seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. All security systems need to be regularly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Server setup. For example, websites on shared webhosting are only as safe as the least safe site on the grid, so if someone else has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then every site on your server can potentially become vulnerable to hacking also.

There Is No Reason To Avoid Choosing WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is as secure as most other leading web platforms being used by businesses to build their presence online. As long as you commit to implementing basic website security measures and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) regularly up-to-date, there is no reason why you shouldn’t use WordPress to run your web site or blog.

WordPress Security – Tips

To learn about ways to protect your WordPress site from brute-force attacks see this article:  Ten Things You Can Do To Prevent Brute Force Attacks On Your WordPress Site

A compromised web site provides malicious users with a platform to launch distributed attacks, spread malware and use your website to steal information from innocent people. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks. Go here to learn more:

• Hide Your WP Blog From Botnets & Hackers

If you are currently using an outdated version of WordPress remember to back up everything before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore everything to its previous state.

If you don’t want to back up your files manually, there are many plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Backup, Duplicate & Protect Your WP Website With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

Article References

The above statistics were referenced from various 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, the above article has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you grow your business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business website or blog please see other posts we have published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles are published.

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