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

These attacks were caused by computer networks infected with viruses and programmed to attack other computers, also commonly known as “botnets”.

(WordPress powers millions of websites around the world, which makes it an obvious target for attempted attacks by hackers)

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

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Screenshot: 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 described by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When worldwide attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for people to start asking just how secure the WordPress platform is for building and running their sites.

WordPress often comes under attack by hackers, due to its global popularity. But do you really need to be concerned about WordPress as being a secure platform for building your business website?

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

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at facts …

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

The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and the situation is only going to get 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 … 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?

”Isn’t Open Source Software Extremely Vulnerable?”

Some people argue that WordPress should not be used for building and running web sites because its open source code means that anyone can view how the software was built.

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

The argument, then, goes something like this: If anyone can examine the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily download the code and study every line, searching for weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the code that they could exploit …

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when before someone attempts to hack your website … WordPress or no WordPress!)

While it’s true that WordPress is a free program and hackers can easily go through the code searching for holes or weaknesses that can be exploited (hackers can do the same with any software program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source application actually makes it a whole lot more secure in several ways.

This is because WordPress is supported by a huge volunteer community that consists of hundreds of people such as software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

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

WordPress evolves largely through the effort of a huge community working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. It benefits from thousands of web developers, designers and users dedicated to improving the code, fixing bugs and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

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

The moment that a security problem is identified by developers or users, these are immediately noted in user forums and addressed by the WordPress developers …

(WordPress is continually being improved upon by an open community of developers and users. Image source: WordPress.org)

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

For example:

• If you come across bugs or a security exploit, you can report these by notifying security@wordpress.org.
• If you find any issues in a WordPress plugin, you can also report these by sending an email to plugins@wordpress.org.

This is one of the reasons why the WordPress team releases new security updates on a regular basis, and why you need to keep your WordPress sites and blogs up-to-date …

(WordPress frequently releases new updates to address security issues)

WordPress Vs Proprietary Platforms

We’ve just seen that one of the security advantages of using an open source technology 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 platforms are normally developed by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, support, bug fixes and software fixes.

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 CMS company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver you a completely free CMS application that you can download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress Vs Other Open Source Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management systems, there is valid research showing that the WordPress CMS is actually safer than other leading Open Source CMS platforms such as Drupal and Joomla.

For example, here is one study showing how many security vulnerabilities were discovered in each of these CMS platforms …

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

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

(WordPress users are less exposed to risks than other CMS platform users. Image source: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame The Technology

Whenever WordPress sites get attacked, don’t be quick to blame the WordPress CMS platform.

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” published by security organizations Commtouch and StopBadware, a large number of website owners are not fully aware of the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or deal with compromised web security.

In fact, over 60% of webmasters surveyed for the 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, however, is the fact that most security issues seem to be related to users forgetting to upgrade their CMS software to the latest version …

(Many WordPress sites use outdated versions. Screenshot 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 3rd-party code are actually found in the WordPress core software, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions created by 3rd-party developers …

(WordPress Security Issues. Screenshot source: WebDesign.org)

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

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

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

In an article 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 around the world, including banks, global corporations and e-commerce sites choose WordPress to build their web presence, not just bloggers.

Other Issues Affecting Site Security

Other areas that can affect security include:

• No platform is immune to hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to using software that is out of date.
• The biggest threat in all CMS platforms seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore strong password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. All security systems require frequent monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Server setup. For example, sites on shared webhosting accounts are only as safe as the least safe website on the hosting grid, so if another user has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then every site on the shared server is potentially vulnerable.

There Is No Reason Why You Shouldn’t Choose WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is as secure as most of the leading web platforms being used by businesses to build their presence online. As long as you implement basic web security measures and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) regularly updated, there’s no reason to avoid using WordPress.

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 Or Blog

A compromised blog provides malicious users with a platform for denial of service attacks, spreading malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks. Learn more about this plugin here:

• Blog Defender Security Plugin

If you are currently using an older WordPress version make sure you make a 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. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Duplicate And Protect Your WordPress Websites And Blogs 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, this 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 click on links to visit our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles are published.

***