In 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to worldwide brute force attacks.
These attacks were caused by botnets (computer networks infected with malware and programmed to attack other computers with security vulnerabilities).
(WordPress often comes under attack by hackers, due to its global popularity)
On March 11, 2014, technology sites reported that over 160,000+ WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.
(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in March 2014. Image: 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 security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.
Whenever global attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for people to ask if WordPress really is a secure software for running their sites.
Powering millions of websites and blogs around the world makes WordPress an obvious target for hacking. But do you 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 consider choosing WordPress if you are at all concerned about website security.
WordPress Security Explained
Let’s start with the facts …
Thousands of websites and blogs are hacked every year … not just WordPress sites!
The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and the situation is only going to get worse.
It’s safe to assume that if your website or blog hasn’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 your website has been built with!
Since it’s no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website is targeted by malicious hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?
Is “Open Source” Safe From Hacking?
Many people will often argue that WordPress is not a secure platform for building and running a website or blog because it is “open source” and freely available software application.
Open source CMS software like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone has access to the entire underlying code.
The argument against WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can study the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily obtain the code and study every line, searching for security vulnerabilities in the code that could be exploited …
(It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website will be targeted by malicious hackers … WordPress or no WordPress!)
While it’s true that WordPress is a free application and hackers can easily go through the code looking for security weaknesses and vulnerabilities that can be exploited (hackers can do the same with any software), the fact that WordPress is a free, open platform actually makes it more secure in several ways.
This is because WordPress is supported by a large volunteer community of thousands of people such as software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help improve the program and make WordPress more secure …
(With WordPress, a large volunteer community of hundreds of developers is responsible for keeping the code up-to-date. Screenshot image: make.wordpress.org)
WordPress evolves largely through the effort of a global 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 software, fixing bugs and making WordPress safer for every user …
(WordPress is built by a global community of users. Screenshot: make.wordpress.org)
As soon as security problems are discovered by developers or users, these are reported in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core developers …
(WordPress is continually being improved upon by an open community of web developers and users. Image: make.wordpress.org)
The WordPress community support system is very responsive and anybody can help contribute to fixing the platform.
For example:
- If you notice bugs and a security exploit, you can report these by sending an email to security@wordpress.org.
- If you find issues in a WP plugin, you can also report these by notifying plugins@wordpress.org.
This is why the WordPress community is constantly releasing new updates, and why you continually need to keep your WordPress sites and blogs frequently up-to-date …
(WordPress continually releases new version updates to plug any security issues found)
WordPress Vs Proprietary Platforms
We’ve just seen that one of the security advantages of using an ”open” platform like WordPress is that users benefit from a large community of developers who continually contribute to make the code more secure. By contrast, a proprietary or “closed-source” CMS application is built by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, software maintenance, bug fixes and updates.
WordPress is 100% free to download, modify and use, 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 users a free platform that they can download, use and modify as they wish?
WordPress Vs Other Open Source Applications
(CMS Platforms)
Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management systems, there is valid research to support the fact that WordPress is safer than other Open Source CMS platforms like Drupal and Joomla.
For example, the chart below shows the number of security vulnerabilities discovered in popular platforms during a given period …
(WordPress has less security vulnerabilities than other CMS platforms. Image: National Vulnerability Database)
Other research shows that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and keep up-to-date, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security issues, sites built with WordPress had significantly less exposure to risk …
(WordPress users are less exposed to security vulnerabilities than other CMS platform users. Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)
Don’t Blame The WordPress CMS
Whenever WordPress sites are subjected to brute-force attacks, don’t be quick to place the blame on WordPress.
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 are not fully aware of the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to properly secure a website, or how to deal with compromised web security.
In fact, over sixty percent of webmasters surveyed for the report didn’t even know how their websites were compromised by hackers after an attack …
(Most webmasters don’t know how their sites get hacked. Screenshot source: StopBadware.org)
Of immediate concern is the fact that many security issues seem to be related to users not upgrading their WordPress software to the latest version …
(Many WordPress users have not upgraded their WordPress software. Screenshot: Sucuri.net)
When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only a small percentage of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are actually found in the WordPress CMS core, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally for WordPress …
(WordPress Security Issues. Source: WebDesign.org)
Like many web 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 software, plugins, and themes updated to the latest version.
WordPress … Good Enough For Banks To Use!
The amount of misinformation about how secure WordPress is has even led the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, to chime into the online debate.
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 use WordPress to build their web presence, including banks, large organizations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.
Other Issues Affecting WP Site Security
Other factors that can affect security include:
- No platform is completely safe from hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to attack, mostly due to software that is out of date.
- The main security weakness of all content management systems seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security recommendations.
- Lack of constant system monitoring. All security systems require frequent monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
- Server setup. For example, sites on shared webhosting are only as safe as the least safe site on the grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then all sites on your server are potentially vulnerable to hacking as well.
There Is No Reason Why You Should Not Use 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 security measures (which all website owners should do, regardless of their chosen technology platform) and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) updated, there is no reason why you shouldn’t choose 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 site offers malicious users with a valuable resource for launching denial of service attacks, spreading malware and as a source of information theft. Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to botnets and hackers. Go here to learn more:
If you are currently using an outdated version of WordPress make sure you make a complete 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 previous settings.
If you don’t want to back up your site manually, there are many 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
The above statistics were referenced from various online 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 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 the WP software please click on links to visit our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new content is published.
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