In early 2013 a worldwide brute force attack began hitting WordPress installations on almost every web host in existence.

These attacks were caused by botnets (computers infected with malware and programmed to attack other computers).

(WordPress is the world’s most used content management system which makes it a natural target for hackers)

In March 2014, 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 early 2014. Image source: BlogDefender.com)

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 well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

Whenever attacks on WordPress sites increase in frequency, it’s natural for people to start questioning just how safe and secure WordPress is as a software for building and running their websites.

WordPress is the world’s most used CMS making it an obvious target for attempted hacker attacks. But should you really 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 consider using WordPress if you are at all concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with some 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 it’s only going to get worse.

It’s safe to 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 your website has been built with!

Since it’s no longer a matter of if, but when before someone will attempt to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

Is “Open Source” Secure?

Some people often argue that WordPress should not be used for running a business online because it’s a freely available open source software application.

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

The argument against using WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can study the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily get hold of the code and study every line in detail, searching for security weaknesses they can exploit …

(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 program and hackers can easily go through the code searching for security holes or weaknesses that can be exploited (hackers can do the same with any software), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source application actually makes it more secure in a number of ways.

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

(A volunteer community of web developers worldwide is responsible for maintaining and updating the WordPress core application. Image: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress continually evolves through the effort of hundreds of committed volunteers working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from thousands of web developers, designers and users who are dedicated to improving the software, fixing bugs and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(WordPress is built and maintained by an open community of users. Screenshot: WordPress.org)

The moment any security weaknesses are identified by developers or users, these are normally noted in user forums and addressed by the WordPress developers …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is quite formidable and anyone can help contribute to the improvement of the software.

For example:

• If you discover bugs and security holes, you can report these by emailing security@wordpress.org.
• If you find issues in a WP plugin, you can also report these by notifying plugins@wordpress.org.

This is the reason why the WordPress team releases new updates regularly, and why you need to keep your WordPress site up-to-date …

(WordPress continually releases new updates to plug security weaknesses)

WordPress Vs Proprietary 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 software more secure. By contrast, a proprietary or “closed-source” software application is 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 are continually working to improve the technology. Can a proprietary CMS company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver users software that is 100% free to download, use and modify as they wish?

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(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 the number of security vulnerabilities discovered in each of these CMS platforms …

(National Vulnerability Database – Security Vulnerabilities IN CMS Applications. Screenshot image: National Vulnerability Database)

Other research indicates that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and to keep updated, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security issues, WordPress sites had fewer exposure to risk …

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

Don’t Blame The WordPress CMS

When WordPress sites are subjected to brute-force attacks, users shouldn’t be too quick to blame WordPress.

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” published by security vendor Commtouch and StopBadware, a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises, most webmasters are not fully aware of 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 for the report didn’t know how their websites were hacked after an attack …

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

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

(Many security issues come from sites running an outdated version of WordPress. Image: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only a small percentage of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are found in the WordPress CMS core, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions created by third-party developers …

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

Like many modern web platforms, WordPress is regularly updated in order to deal with new security problems that can arise. Improving security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep up to date with the latest version of WordPress software, plugins, themes, etc..

WordPress … Secure 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 debate.

In a post entitled “A Bank Website on WordPress” posted on April 15, 2015, Matt wrote the following about WordPress security …

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, leading brands, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors That Can Affect Website Security

Other areas that can affect WordPress blog security include:

• No platform is completely immune to hackers. 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 risk of all content management systems seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore strong password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security processes need to be constantly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Server setup. For example, sites on shared hosting are only as secure as the least secure website on the hosting grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site broken into, then all sites on the server can potentially become vulnerable.

There Is No Reason Why You Should Not Choose WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is quite secure. As long as you commit to implementing basic security measures and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) regularly up-to-date, there’s no reason to avoid choosing WordPress.

WordPress Security – Tips

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

A compromised web site presents malicious users with a resource to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin for WordPress makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets. Go here to learn more:

• Blog Defender Security Plugin

If you are currently using an older WordPress version remember to back up everything before updating your software to protect your site from the latest security threats. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore.

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

References Used In This Article

For more information on the above, see the following sources:

• 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 using WordPress for a business website please click on links to visit other posts we have published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles or tutorials are published.

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