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

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

(WordPress often comes under attack by hackers)

On March 11, 2014, many leading technology sites reported that over 162,000 WordPress-powered websites had been hacked.

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in March 2014. Screenshot source: BlogDefender website)

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 web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When global attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for website owners to ask if WordPress really is a secure software for running a business web presence.

Being the world’s most popular content management system makes WordPress a target for attempted hacker attacks. But should you really 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 using WordPress if you have any concerns about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at some facts …

Thousands of websites and blogs 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 it’s getting worse.

You can safely assume that if you haven’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time … regardless of the web platform you use!

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

”How Can Open Source Software Be Secured?”

Some people often argue that WordPress should not be used for building and running a web presence because it is “open source” and freely available software application.

Open source CMS programs like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone can access the entire software 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 also easily obtain the code and go through all of it in detail, looking for vulnerabilities in the code that they could exploit …

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but when before your website will be 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 holes or weaknesses (hackers can do the same with any software program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source platform actually makes it more secure in a number of ways.

This is because WordPress has the support of a global community comprised of hundreds of people such as software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help to improve the platform and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, a global volunteer community of hundreds of developers is responsible for keeping the software code updated. Screenshot: WordPress.org)

WordPress continually evolves through the effort of hundreds of committed volunteers working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from hundreds of individuals committed to improving the code and making WordPress safer for every user …

(WordPress is built by an open community of volunteer members. Screenshot source: WordPress.org)

The moment that a security issue is identified by developers or users, the WordPress developers are then notified …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is very responsive and anyone can contribute to improving the platform.

For example:

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

This is why the WordPress community is constantly releasing new updates, and why you need to keep your WordPress sites and blogs regularly updated …

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

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary CMS Applications

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 platform more secure. By contrast, a proprietary or “closed-source” CMS application is typically developed by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, maintenance services, bug fixes and software fixes.

WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify, and thousands of volunteers and expert developers work on improving the platform. Can a proprietary CMS company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver you a completely free CMS software that you can download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source Applications

(CMS Platforms)

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

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

(National Vulnerability Database – Security Vulnerabilities IN CMS Platforms. Image source: National Vulnerability Database)

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

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

Don’t Blame The WordPress CMS

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

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” published by a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises called StopBadware and security vendor Commtouch, most website owners have no idea about the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or how to deal with compromised web security.

In fact, over sixty percent of webmasters surveyed in this report didn’t know how their sites were compromised by hackers after an attack …

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

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

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

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only between 25% – 30% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are actually found in the WordPress core software, while 65% – 80% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

(WP Security Issues. Screenshot image: WebDesign.org)

Like many software applications, WordPress is updated regularly to address new security risks that can arise. Improving security is an ongoing concern, and to that end, you should always keep up to date with the latest version of WordPress software, themes, plugins, etc..

WordPress Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Organizations!

The amount of misinformation about how secure WordPress is has even caused the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, to chime in and reply to posts online.

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, leading brands and e-commerce sites use WordPress to build their websites, not just bloggers.

Other Issues Affecting Security

Other areas that can affect WP blog security include issues like:

• No platform is protected from security threats. 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 biggest risk of all web platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant monitoring. All security processes require regular monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Webhosting server setup. For example, websites on shared hosting are only as safe as the least secure site on the grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then every site on the server becomes vulnerable.

There Is No Reason To Avoid Choosing WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is a secure web platform. 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 no reason not to use WordPress.

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 compromised web site provides hackers with a valuable resource to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and use your site to defraud online users. Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to botnets and hackers. Go here to learn more:

• Blog Defender Security Plugin – How To Make Your Site Hidden To Bots And Hackers

If you are currently using an older WordPress version make sure to make a full site backup before updating your software to protect your site from the latest security risks. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore everything to its former configuration.

If you don’t want to back up your data manually, there are a number of free and paid plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone And Keep Your WP Web Site Protected With Backup Creator WP Plugin

References Used In This Article

The statistics quoted above were sourced from the following sites:

• 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 build a better business 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 when new articles are published.

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