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

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

(Being the world’s most used CMS makes WordPress a target for attacks by malicious users)

On March 11, 2014, many technology sites reported that 160,000+ WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.

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

As described by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When worldwide attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for website owners to question if WordPress really is a secure software for running their sites.

Being the world’s most popular content management system makes WordPress an obvious target for hackers. But do you need to be concerned about WordPress as a secure platform for building your business presence online?

In this article, you will learn some of the main reasons why you should definitely use WordPress if you have any concerns about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with some facts …

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

The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is rising, and things are getting 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 attempts 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 a matter of when before your website will be targeted by hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

Is “Open Source” Safe?

Many people argue that WordPress cannot be a secure platform for running websites or blogs because it is a freely available open source application.

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

The argument against WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can access the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily get hold of the code and go through every single line in great detail, searching for security holes 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 malicious 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 holes or weaknesses that can be exploited (hackers can do the same with any program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source platform actually makes it more secure in many ways.

This is because WordPress is supported by an open volunteer community consisting of hundreds of people such as software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help to improve the program and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, a volunteer community of hundreds of developers is responsible for keeping the platform updated. Source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress continually evolves through the effort of hundreds of committed individuals working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from hundreds of minds who, at any one time, are focused on improving the software and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built and maintained by an open community of web developers. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

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

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is quite formidable and anybody can help contribute to the process of getting vulnerabilities plugged.

For example:

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

This is one of the reasons why the core development team releases new version updates regularly, and why you need to keep your site frequently updated …

(WordPress frequently releases new version updates to plug security exploits)

WordPress Vs Proprietary Platforms

Compare what we have just discussed above with proprietary CMS platforms where often a much smaller team with limited resources is responsible for developing, monitoring and improving software security, fixing bugs, etc., and you will quickly realize the value of using WordPress to run your business presence online 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 platform. Can a proprietary technology 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 CMS Vs Other Open Source Applications

(CMS Platforms)

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

For example, the chart below shows how many security vulnerabilities were discovered in popular open source CMS platforms …

(WordPress experiences less security vulnerabilities than other leading CMS applications. Image: National Vulnerability Database)

Other research shows that, because WordPress is easy to use and to maintain, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security vulnerabilities, sites built with WordPress had fewer exposure to risk …

(Blog Defender – CMS Tests. Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame The Technology

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

According to security vendor Commtouch and StopBadware, a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises in a published report entitled “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective“, most website owners are not fully aware of the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or how to deal with web security compromises.

In fact, over 60% of webmasters surveyed in this report didn’t even know how their sites were compromised after an attack …

(Most webmasters don’t even know how their sites get hacked. Source: StopBadware.org)

Of immediate concern is the fact that most security-related problems arise from users running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

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

When WordPress security issues were examined 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 65% – 85% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions created by 3rd-party developers …

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

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

The amount of misinformation about WordPress security has even led 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 …

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, 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 things like:

• No platform is safe from security threats. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to attack, mostly due to software that is out of date.
• The biggest security vulnerability in all content management platforms seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore strong password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. All security processes require constant monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Hosting setup. For example, websites on shared hosting are only as safe as the least secure site on the hosting grid, so if someone else has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then all sites on the server become vulnerable.

There’s No Reason Why You Should Not Use WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is quite secure. 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.) up-to-date, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t choose 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 provides malicious users with a valuable resource to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks. Learn more about this plugin here:

• How To Prevent Malicious Cyber Attacks On Your WordPress Site From Hackers And Bots With Blog Defender

If you are currently using an older WordPress version remember to make a complete backup 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 files manually, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Clone & Protect Your WordPress Websites With Backup Creator WP Plugin

Article References

The facts quoted above were referenced from various online sources, including those listed 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 website and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To learn more about the security benefits of using WordPress please see other articles we have published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles are published.

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