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

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

(WordPress often comes under attack by hackers)

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

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 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)

As described by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP sites 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 start asking just how secure WordPress is as a platform for running websites.

Being the world’s most popular content management system makes WordPress an obvious target for hackers. But do you need to be concerned about WordPress as being a secure platform for building your business presence online?

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

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at some facts …

Thousands of websites are hacked 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.

It’s safe to 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 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?

”How Can Open Source Applications Prevent Hacking?”

Some people often argue that WordPress should not be used for running websites and blogs because its “open source” code is freely available.

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

The argument against WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can examine the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily obtain the code and study it in detail, searching for security holes that could be exploited …

(It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when before someone tries to hack your website … WordPress or no WordPress!)

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

The reason for this is that WordPress has the support of a large community of thousands of people such as software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help to improve the platform and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, a huge community of hundreds of web developers worldwide is responsible for keeping the core application code up-to-date. Image source: WordPress.org)

WordPress continually evolves largely through the effort of a global volunteer community working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. Everyone benefits from thousands of individuals who are dedicated to improving the software, fixing bugs and making it safer for every user …

(WordPress is built by a global community of users. Screenshot image: WordPress.org)

As soon as any security vulnerabilities are identified by developers or users, the WordPress development team are then notified …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is solid and formidable and anyone can contribute to the process of addressing security issues.

For example:

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

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

(WordPress continually releases new updates to plug security exploits)

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary CMS 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 improve code security. By contrast, proprietary or “closed-source” CMS platforms are typically built by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, software maintenance, bug fixes and software fixes.

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

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source CMS Applications

(CMS Platforms - WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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 Open Source CMS platforms such as Drupal and Joomla.

For example, here is one study showing how many security vulnerabilities were found in popular open source CMS platforms …

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

Other studies indicate that, because WordPress is easy to use and to keep up-to-date, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security vulnerabilities, sites built with WordPress had fewer exposure to risk …

(WordPress users are not as exposed to security threats as other CMS platform users. Image source: BlogDefender.com)

It’s Easier To Blame Technology When Things Go Wrong

Whenever WordPress sites are attacked, 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“, a large number of website owners are not fully aware of the threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or deal with compromised web security.

In fact, over sixty percent of webmasters surveyed for the report didn’t know how their websites were hacked after an attack …

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

Of immediate concern is the fact that most security issues seem to be related to site owners running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

(Many WordPress users have not updated their WordPress software. Screenshot: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only around between 25% – 35% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are found in the WordPress CMS core, while 65% – 75% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally …

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

Like many web applications, WordPress is updated regularly in order to address new security risks that may arise. Improving software security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep up to date with the latest version of WordPress.

WordPress Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Businesses!

The amount of misinformation about how secure WordPress is has even led the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, 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 choose WordPress to build their presence online, including banks, large organizations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Areas Affecting Website Security

Other factors that can affect WordPress security include:

• No platform is completely safe from security threats. 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 main security vulnerability in all CMS platforms seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore good password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. Security systems require constant monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Server setup. For example, sites on shared webhosting servers are only as safe as the least secure site on the hosting grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then every site on that shared server becomes vulnerable to being hacked as well.

There Is No Reason Why You Shouldn’t Choose WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is quite secure. As long as you continue to implement basic website security measures and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) regularly up-to-date, there is no reason to avoid choosing WordPress to power your web site or blog.

WordPress Security – Practical Tips

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

An unsecured site provides malicious users with a valuable platform for distributed attacks, spreading malware and as a source of information theft. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers. Go here to learn more:

• How To Hide Your WP Blogs From Bots And Hackers

If you are using older versions of WordPress make sure you back up your WordPress site files and data before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore your website to its former configuration.

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 WordPress Web Sites With Backup Creator WP Plugin

Article 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, 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 for a business website please see other posts we have published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles are published.

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