In April 2013 a worldwide brute-force attack began hitting WordPress installations across almost every web host in existence around the world.

These attacks were caused by networks of infected computers programmed to attack other installations (called “botnets”).

(WordPress powers millions of websites worldwide, which makes it an obvious target for hacking attempts)

In March 2014, many leading technology sites reported that over 162,000 WordPress sites had been hacked.

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Screenshot source: Blog Defender)

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 websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When attacks on WordPress sites seem to increase, it’s natural for people to start questioning just how secure WordPress is as a platform for running their websites.

Being the world’s most used content management system makes WordPress an obvious target for hacking attacks. But should you really 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 use WordPress if you are at all concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with some facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is increasing on a daily basis, and it’s getting worse.

You can safely assume that if your website or blog hasn’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 a matter of when before a malicious user will attempt to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

The “Open Source” Argument For Security Weaknesses

Some people argue that WordPress should not be used for building and running a website or blog because its “open source” code is freely available.

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

The argument, then, goes something like this: If everyone can examine the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily get hold of the code and go through it, searching for holes and weaknesses in the code that could be exploited …

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but a matter of 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 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 whole lot more secure in many ways.

The reason for this is that WordPress is supported by a community of hundreds of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help improve the program and make WordPress more secure …

(An open volunteer community of web developers worldwide maintain and update. Image source: WordPress.org)

WordPress evolves largely through the effort of a huge community working around the clock to fix issues. It benefits from thousands of minds who are dedicated to improving the application, fixing bugs and making WordPress safer for every user …

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

The moment any security holes are discovered by developers or users, these are logged in user forums and addressed by the WordPress development team …

(WordPress is continually being improved by a huge community community of web developers and users. Screenshot: WordPress.org)

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

For example:

• If you find bugs and a security issue, 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 emailing plugins@wordpress.org.

This is one of the reasons why the core development team releases new version updates on a regular basis, and why you continually need to keep your site updated …

(WordPress continually releases new updates to plug any security holes found)

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary Applications

Compare what we have just discussed above with proprietary CMS platforms where often a small team with limited time and resources is responsible for monitoring and improving software security, fixing bugs, etc., and you will very quickly realize the security benefits of using WordPress to run your websites and blogs on a secure platform.

The WordPress CMS is free to download, modify and use, and thousands of volunteers and expert developers are continually working to improve the platform. 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 Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management systems, there is valid research showing that WordPress is safer than other leading Open Source CMS platforms such as Drupal and Joomla.

For example, here is one study showing how many security vulnerabilities were discovered in popular platforms during a certain period …

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

Other research indicates that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and update, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security vulnerabilities, WordPress sites had a significant degree of less exposure to risk …

(WordPress is more secure than other leading CMS applications. Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame WordPress

If someone breaks into your WordPress site, don’t be too quick to place the blame on WordPress.

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” which is published by a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises called StopBadware and security vendor Commtouch, 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 in this report didn’t even know how their websites were compromised by hackers after an attack …

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

Of more immediate concern, however, is the fact that many security-related problems arise from website owners running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

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

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

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

Like many software applications, WordPress is updated regularly in order to address new security problems that could arise. Improving security is an ongoing 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 online about how secure WordPress is has even caused the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, to chime in and reply to posts online.

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 That Can Affect Website Security

Other factors that can affect WordPress blog 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 attack, mostly due to using software that is out of date.
• The main threat of all CMS platforms 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, websites on shared webhosting servers are only as safe as the least secure site 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.

There Is No Reason Not To Use 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 plugins, themes, etc.) updated, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t choose WordPress.

WordPress Security – Tips

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

A compromised site offers malicious users with a resource for denial of service attacks, spreading malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks. Learn more about it here:

• Blog Defender Review

If you are currently using an outdated version of WordPress remember to back up your site fully before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore your site to its former settings.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone And Protect Your WordPress Site With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

References Used In This Article

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 issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better business results online. To learn more about the security benefits of using WordPress for a business web site please see other articles published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles are published.

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