In 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to worldwide brute-force attacks.

These attacks were caused by botnets (computers infected with viruses and programmed to attack other vulnerable computers).

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

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

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

Whenever global attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for people to question just how secure WordPress is as a software for building and running an online presence.

Powering millions of websites worldwide makes WordPress a target for hackers. But should you really be concerned about WordPress as a secure platform for building your business web presence?

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 some facts …

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

The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and the situation is getting worse.

It’s safe to assume that if you haven’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 you use!

Since it’s not a matter of if, but when before a malicious user will try to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

Is “Open Source” Safe?

Some people will often try to argue that WordPress should not be used for building and running a web presence because its “open source” code is freely available.

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

The argument against using WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can examine the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily obtain all of the code and go through every single line in detail, looking for holes and weaknesses that could be exploited …

(It’s not a matter of if, but when before your website is targeted by malicious hackers … WordPress or no WordPress!)

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

This is because WordPress has the support of a global volunteer community of hundreds of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help improve the program and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, an open community of developers is responsible for keeping the core application up-to-date. Screenshot: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress continually evolves because of the effort of a huge volunteer 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, identifying and fixing security vulnerabilities and making WordPress safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built by a global community of WordPress users. Screenshot source: make.wordpress.org)

As soon as any security holes are identified by developers or users, these are recorded in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core development team …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is quite formidable and anyone can help contribute to the process of addressing vulnerabilities.

For example:

• If you discover bugs and a security weakness, you can report these by emailing security@wordpress.org.
• If you find any 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 security updates, and why you need to keep your WordPress site up-to-date …

(WordPress frequently releases new updates to address any security holes found)

WordPress Vs Proprietary Platforms

Compare what we have just discussed above with proprietary CMS platforms where often a small team with limited resources is responsible for monitoring and improving software security, fixing bugs, etc., and you will quickly understand the value of using WordPress to power your site 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 technology. Can a proprietary CMS company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver you software that is 100% free to download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source CMS 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 Open Source CMS platforms like Drupal and Joomla.

For example, the chart below shows the number of security vulnerabilities found in popular platforms during a given period …

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

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

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

Don’t Blame The Platform

When WordPress sites get attacked, you shouldn’t be too quick to blame the WordPress CMS platform.

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

In fact, over 60% of webmasters surveyed for the report didn’t know how their sites were compromised after an attack …

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

Of more immediate concern for WordPress users, is the fact that most security problems seem to be related to 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 third-party code are actually found in the WordPress core software, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

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

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

WordPress Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Businesses!

The amount of misinformation online about WordPress security has even caused Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, to chime into the online 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, large organizations and e-commerce sites use WordPress to build their websites, not just bloggers.

Other Areas Affecting Site Security

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

• No platform is immune to hacking. 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 security vulnerability of all content management systems seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore good password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant monitoring. All security systems need frequent monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Server setup. For example, sites on shared webhosting servers are only as secure as the least safe website on the grid, so if another user has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then all sites on that server can potentially become vulnerable to hacking also.

There Is No Reason To Avoid Using WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, 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 continue to implement basic website security measures and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) regularly updated, there’s no reason not to choose WordPress to run your web site or blog.

WordPress Security – Useful Tips

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

A vulnerable website offers hackers with a platform to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks. Go here to learn more:

• Make Your Blogs Unseen By Botnets And Hackers With Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin

If you are using older versions of WordPress remember to make a full site backup before updating your software to protect your site from the latest security threats. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore everything to its previous state.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Copy And Keep Your WP Websites Protected With Backup Creator WP Plugin

Article 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, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To learn more about the security benefits of using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit other posts published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles or tutorials are published.

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