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

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

(WordPress is often the target of malicious attacks by hackers, due to its global popularity)

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

(Over 160,000 WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in March 2014. Image 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 described by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When global brute force attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for website owners to start questioning if WordPress really is a safe software for building and running websites.

WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system which makes it a target for malicious attacks by hackers. 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 have any concerns 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 sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is increasing on a daily basis, and it’s getting worse.

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

Since it’s no longer a matter of if, but when before your website is targeted by malicious hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

”Isn’t Open Source Software Extremely Vulnerable?”

Many people often argue that WordPress should not be used for building and running web sites because its “open source” code is freely available.

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

The argument, then, goes something like this: If anyone can view the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily get hold of the code and study every single line in detail, looking for security vulnerabilities in the code that can be exploited …

(It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website is targeted by hackers … WordPress or no WordPress!)

While it’s true that WordPress is a free application and hackers can easily access it and study the code looking for holes or weaknesses (hackers can do the same with any software application), the fact that WordPress is a free, open application actually makes it a lot more secure in a number of ways.

This is because WordPress has the support of a community comprised of hundreds of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help improve the program and make WordPress more secure …

(A huge volunteer community of developers worldwide build, maintain and update. Screenshot image: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress continually evolves through the effort of hundreds of committed volunteers working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. It benefits from thousands of minds committed to improving the application and making WordPress safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built and maintained by a large community of WordPress users. Screenshot source: WordPress.org)

As soon as any security vulnerabilities are discovered by developers or users, these are then logged in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core developers …

(WordPress is continually being improved upon by a global community community of users and developers. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

The WordPress community support system is very responsive and anybody can help contribute to the process of getting bugs fixed.

For example:

• If you discover bugs or a security vulnerability, you can report these by notifying 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 core development team is constantly releasing new version updates, and why you need to keep your sites and blogs frequently up-to-date …

(WordPress frequently releases new updates to plug security vulnerabilities)

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary Applications

Contrast the benefits of using an open source CMS platform like WordPress with proprietary CMS technologies where often the responsibility for maintaining software security, fixing bugs, etc. falls to a much smaller team of developers with limited resources and you will very quickly realize the value of using WordPress to run your websites and blogs on a secure platform.

The WordPress CMS 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 you software that is 100% free to download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress Vs Other Open Source Applications

(CMS Platforms include WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management systems, there is valid research showing that the WordPress CMS is actually 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 open source platforms during a certain period …

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

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

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

WordPress Is Not At Fault

If someone hacks into your WordPress site, don’t be quick to blame the WordPress CMS platform.

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, many website owners have no idea about the threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or deal with compromises.

In fact, over 60% of webmasters surveyed for the report didn’t even know how their sites had been compromised by hackers after an attack …

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

Of immediate concern, however, is the fact that many security issues seem to be related to website owners running WordPress on outdated versions of the software …

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

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only between 20% – 35% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in third-party code are found in the WordPress CMS core, while 70% – 85% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally …

(WP Security Issues. Image: WebDesign.org)

Like all robust web platforms, WordPress is regularly updated in order to deal with new security risks 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 Organizations!

The amount of misinformation online about how secure WordPress is 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” 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, large organizations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors That Can Affect Security

Other research on issues that play a role in website security point to factors like:

• No platform is completely safe from hacking. 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 weakness in all content management platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security systems need constant monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Webhosting setup. For example, websites on shared webhosting are only as secure as the least secure site on the grid, so if another user has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then all sites on your server become vulnerable to being hacked also.

There Is No Reason Not To Choose WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is quite secure. As long as you implement basic security measures (which all website owners should do, regardless of their chosen technology platform) and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) up-to-date, there is no reason why you should not 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

A compromised website presents malicious users with a resource to launch distributed attacks, spread malware and use your website to defraud innocent people. Blog Defender Security Plugin for WordPress Blogs makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets. Learn more about it here:

• How To Make Your Web Sites Unseen By Hackers With Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin

If you are currently using an outdated WordPress version make sure to back up everything before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore.

If you don’t want to back up your files manually, there are a number of free and paid plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here: Back Up, Copy And Keep Your WordPress Sites Protected With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

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 problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles or tutorials are published.

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