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

These attacks were caused by networks of infected computers programmed to attack other vulnerable sites (botnets).

(WordPress powers millions of websites worldwide, making it an obvious target for malicious attacks by hackers)

In March 2014, many leading technology sites reported that 160,000+ WordPress web sites had been hacked.

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

As reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When attacks on WordPress sites attract attention worldwide, it’s natural for people to start asking just how secure the WordPress platform is for running a business web presence.

WordPress is often the target of malicious attacks by hackers. 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 use WordPress if you have any concerns about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with some 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 massive, and this is getting worse.

You can safely 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 a matter of when before a malicious user tries to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

”Isn’t Open Source Software Unsafe?”

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 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, then, goes something like this: If anyone can examine the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily download the code and go through every single line, looking for vulnerabilities that can be exploited …

(It’s not a matter of if, but 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 go through the code searching for holes or weaknesses (hackers can do the same with any software application), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source software platform actually makes it more secure in a number of ways.

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

(A community of developers around the world maintain and update. Image source: WordPress.org)

WordPress continually evolves largely through the effort of thousands of committed volunteers working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. It benefits from hundreds of individuals who are dedicated to improving the software and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(WordPress is built by a large community of volunteers. Screenshot source: WordPress.org)

The moment that any security vulnerability is identified by developers or users, the WordPress development team are then notified …

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

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

For example:

• If you find bugs and security holes, you can report these by sending an email to security@wordpress.org.
• If you find any issues in a plugin, you can report these by sending an email to plugins@wordpress.org.

This is the reason why WordPress is constantly releasing new updates, and why you need to keep your site updated and maintained …

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

WordPress Vs Proprietary CMS Platforms

Contrast the benefits of using an open source CMS technology like WordPress with proprietary technologies where often the responsibility for maintaining software security, fixing bugs, etc. falls to a much smaller team of developers with limited resources and you will quickly understand the value of using WordPress to power your websites and blogs on a secure platform.

WordPress is free to download, use and modify, and hundreds 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 software that is 100% free to download, use and modify as you 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 WordPress is actually safer than other leading Open Source CMS platforms such as Drupal and Joomla.

For example, the chart below shows the number of security vulnerabilities discovered in popular CMS platforms …

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

Other studies show that, because WordPress is easy to use and keep updated, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security exploits, sites run on WordPress had less exposure to risk …

(Blog Defender – CMS Tests. Image source: BlogDefender.com)

The WordPress CMS Is Not To Blame

Whenever WordPress sites are attacked en masse, users shouldn’t be quick to place the blame on WordPress.

According to a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises called StopBadware and security vendor Commtouch in a published report entitled “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective“, 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 how to deal with web security compromises.

In fact, over 60% of webmasters surveyed in this report didn’t even know how their sites had been compromised by hackers after an attack …

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

Of immediate concern for WordPress users, however, is the fact that many security problems seem to be related to users running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

(Many WordPress sites are running on outdated versions. Screenshot: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only between 25% – 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 developed externally for WordPress …

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

Like all robust software platforms, WordPress is updated regularly to address new security vulnerabilities that may arise. Improving security is an ongoing concern, and to that end, you should always keep your WordPress site, plugins, and themes updated to the latest version.

WordPress Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Businesses!

The amount of misinformation online about WordPress security has even caused the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, 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 choose WordPress to build their presence online, including banks, leading brands, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Issues Affecting WordPress Security

Other studies on issues that affect WordPress security point to factors like:

• No platform is completely immune to 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 vulnerability of all content management systems seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore strong password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security systems need frequent monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Hosting setup. For example, websites on shared hosting accounts are only as secure as the least safe site on the hosting grid, so if someone else has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then every site on the server is potentially vulnerable to being hacked also.

There’s No Reason Why You Shouldn’t Choose WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is a secure web platform. As long as you commit to implementing basic website security measures (which all website owners should do) and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) up-to-date, there is no reason not to choose WordPress.

WordPress Security – Practical Tips

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

A compromised website provides hackers with a valuable resource to launch distributed attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots. Go here to learn more:

• Prevent Malicious Intrusions On Your WP Web Site From Hackers

If you are currently using an outdated version of WordPress make sure you make a full site backup before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone And Protect Your WP Sites With Backup Creator WP Plugin

References

The above statistics 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 website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about using WordPress please see other articles published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles or tutorials are published.

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