In 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to a worldwide brute force attack.

These attacks were caused by botnets (infected computer networks programmed to attack other computers with security vulnerabilities).

(Powering millions of websites and blogs around the world makes WordPress a target for hacking)

On March 11, 2014, many leading technology sites began reporting that 160,000+ WordPress sites had been hacked.

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in March 2014. Screenshot image: 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)

According to leading security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WP websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

Whenever global attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for people to ask if WordPress really is a secure application for running their websites.

Being the world’s most popular CMS makes WordPress a target for hacker attacks. 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 choose WordPress if you have any concerns 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 scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and things are getting worse.

It’s probably safe to assume that if your website or blog hasn’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time before someone attempts 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 your website will be targeted by malicious hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

How Secure Is “Open Source” Software?

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

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

The argument against using WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can study the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can easily download the code and study every single line, looking for security weaknesses in the code that they could exploit …

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

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

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

(With WordPress, a community of hundreds of web developers around the world is responsible for keeping the core application up-to-date. Image: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress continually evolves through the effort of thousands of committed volunteers working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. Everyone benefits from thousands of web developers, designers and users committed to improving the software, identifying and fixing security issues and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built by an open community of WordPress users. Image source: WordPress.org)

The moment that any security weakness is discovered 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 developers. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

The WordPress community support system is solid and formidable and anyone can help contribute to improving the software.

For example:

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

This is the reason why the WordPress team releases new version updates regularly, and why you continually need to keep your sites and blogs frequently updated …

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

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary CMS Platforms

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 improve software security. By contrast, a proprietary or “closed-source” CMS platform would normally be developed by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, support, bug fixes and software fixes.

The WordPress CMS is 100% free to download, modify and use, and hundreds of volunteers and expert developers work on improving the software. Can a proprietary technology company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver users a free CMS software that they can 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 applications, there is valid research showing that the WordPress CMS is 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 platforms during a given period …

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

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

(WordPress users are less exposed to threats than other CMS platform users. Source: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame WordPress

When WordPress sites get subjected to brute-force attacks, don’t be too quick to blame the WordPress CMS platform.

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” published by security organizations Commtouch and StopBadware, a large number of website owners are not fully aware of the 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 even know how their websites had been hacked after an attack …

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

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

(Many WordPress users have not upgraded their WP sites. Image source: Sucuri.net)

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

(WP Security Issues. Image: WebDesign.org)

Like many software platforms, WordPress is regularly updated to deal with new security problems that may 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 Is Secure – Just Ask Any Bank Using It!

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

Other Factors That Can Affect WordPress Site Security

Other factors that can affect security include areas like:

• No platform is safe from hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to outdated software.
• The main security risk in all content management platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring good password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. All security systems need to be regularly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Hosting server setup. For example, sites on shared hosting accounts are only as safe as the least safe website on the hosting grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site broken into, then all sites on that server become vulnerable.

There’s No Reason Not To Choose WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is quite secure. As long as you continue to implement basic security measures and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) updated, there is really no reason why you shouldn’t choose WordPress to power your website or blog.

WordPress Security – Practical 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 blog presents hackers with a valuable resource for denial of service attacks, spreading malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots. Learn more about this plugin here:

• How To Prevent Hackers And Bots From Finding Your Web Site With Blog Defender

If you are using outdated WordPress versions remember to back up your WordPress files before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore.

If you don’t want to back up your site manually, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone And Protect Your WordPress Websites And Blogs 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, 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 using WordPress please click on links to visit other posts published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new content is published.

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