In early 2013 a global brute force attack hit WordPress installations across virtually every web host in existence around the world.

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

(WordPress powers millions of websites and blogs worldwide, which makes it a frequent target for hacking)

In March 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com began reporting that over 162,000 legitimate WordPress websites had been hacked.

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Source: BlogDefender site)

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 WordPress 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 website owners to start questioning just how secure the WordPress platform is for running their websites.

Powering millions of sites worldwide makes WordPress an obvious target for malicious attempts by hackers. But should you 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 use WordPress if you are at all concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at some facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is increasing on a daily basis, and things are only going to get worse.

It’s probably safe to assume that if you haven’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time before someone does attempt to hack into your site … regardless of the web platform your website has been built with!

Since it’s not a matter of if, but when before your website is targeted by hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

Are “Open Source” Software Applications Really Safe?

Some people will often try to argue that WordPress should not be used for running websites and blogs because it’s an “open source” and freely available software application.

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

The argument against using WordPress, then, goes something like this: If everyone can view the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily obtain the code and study all of it in detail, looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the code that can be exploited …

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but when before someone will try to hack your website … WordPress or no WordPress!)

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

The reason for this is that WordPress has the support of an open volunteer community that consists of hundreds of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help improve the platform and make WordPress more secure …

(WordPress is built, maintained and updated by a large community of web developers. Source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress continually evolves through the effort of a huge community working around the clock to fix issues. It benefits from thousands of minds who, at any one time, are focused on improving the code, identifying and fixing security holes and making WordPress safer for every user …

(WordPress is built and maintained by a global community of volunteer web developers. Screenshot source: make.wordpress.org)

As soon as any security issues are identified by developers or users, the WordPress development team are then made aware of it …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is quite formidable and anybody can help contribute to securing the platform.

For example:

• If you discover bugs or security issues, you can report these by emailing security@wordpress.org.
• If you find any issues in a plugin, you can report these by notifying plugins@wordpress.org.

This is one of the reasons why the WordPress community releases new version updates regularly, and why you continually need to keep your site frequently up-to-date …

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

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary CMS Platforms

Compare what we have just discussed above with proprietary technologies where often a small team with limited time and resources is responsible for developing, monitoring and improving software security, fixing bugs, etc., and you will quickly understand the security benefits of using WordPress to power your business web presence on a secure platform.

The WordPress CMS is 100% free to download, use and modify, and thousands of volunteers and expert developers are continually working to improve the software. Can a proprietary technology company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver users a completely free CMS platform that they can download, use and modify as they wish?

WordPress Vs Other Open Source Platforms

(CMS Platforms - WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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

For example, here is one study showing the number of security vulnerabilities discovered in popular CMS platforms …

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

Other research indicates that, because WordPress is easy to use and to keep updated, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security vulnerabilities, sites run on WordPress had less exposure to risk …

(WordPress has less exposure to risk than other leading CMS applications. Image: BlogDefender.com)

It’s Easier To Blame Technology When Things Go Wrong

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

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“, many 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 60% of webmasters surveyed for the 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. Source: StopBadware.org)

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

(Many WordPress sites use outdated versions. Source: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were examined 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 core software, while 65% – 85% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

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

Like all robust web platforms, WordPress is updated regularly to deal with new security threats that may 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 … Secure Enough For Banks To Use!

The amount of misinformation about WordPress security has even caused Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, 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 use WordPress to build their websites, including banks, global corporations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors That Can Affect WordPress Site Security

Other factors that can affect WP website security include areas like:

• No platform is completely protected from security threats. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to software that is out of date.
• The biggest threat in all web platforms seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore good password security practices.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. All security processes need to be regularly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Webhosting server setup. For example, sites on shared hosting are only as safe as the least safe website on the grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then all sites on the server are potentially vulnerable to being hacked also.

There Is No Reason To Avoid Choosing WordPress

As you can see, 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 commit to implementing basic security measures (which all website owners should do) and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) regularly updated, there is 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:  WordPress Brute Force Attack Prevention Measures

An unsecured web site provides malicious users with a platform to launch distributed attacks, spread malware and use your site to defraud innocent people. Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to botnets and hackers. Learn more about this plugin here:

• Protect Your WordPress Blog From Hackers

If you are using older versions of WordPress make sure you back up everything before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore things back to their former configuration.

If you don’t want to back up your data manually, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Backup, Copy And Protect Your WordPress Site With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

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, this 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 WordPress please click on links to visit our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles are published.

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