In April 2013 a global brute force attack hit WordPress installations on virtually every WP hosting server in existence.

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

(Powering millions of websites worldwide makes WordPress a target for hackers)

On March 11, 2014, technology sites began reporting that 162,000 legitimate WordPress-powered websites had been hacked.

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

Whenever brute force attacks on WordPress sites receive attention worldwide, it’s natural for people to question just how secure the WordPress platform is for running websites.

Being the world’s most popular content management system makes WordPress an obvious target for hackers. But should you be concerned about WordPress as being a secure web platform?

In this article, you will learn some of the main reasons why you should definitely consider choosing WordPress if you are at all concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at 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 this is only going to get worse.

It’s safe to 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 when before a malicious user will attempt to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

Is “Open Source” Safe?

Many people will often try to argue that WordPress should not be used for 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 can have access to the software code.

The argument against using WordPress, then, goes something like this: If everyone can view the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily download the code and go through it in detail, searching for vulnerabilities that can be exploited …

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when before a malicious user tries to hack your website … WordPress or no WordPress!)

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

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

(With WordPress, a huge community of volunteers around the world is responsible for keeping the platform maintained and updated. Screenshot source: WordPress.org)

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

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

The moment that any security weakness is identified by developers or users, these are immediately logged in user forums and addressed by the WordPress development team …

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

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

For example:

• If you notice 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 one of the reasons why the WordPress community releases new version updates regularly, and why you need to keep your site regularly up-to-date …

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

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary CMS Applications

We’ve just seen that one of the security advantages of using an ”open” platform like WordPress is that users benefit from a large community of developers who continually contribute to improve platform security. By contrast, a proprietary or “closed-source” software application would normally be developed by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, support, bug fixes and updates.

The WordPress CMS is free to download, use and modify, and thousands of volunteers and expert developers are continually working to improve the software. 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 - WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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

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

(WordPress has less security vulnerabilities than other CMS platforms. Source: National Vulnerability Database)

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

(Blog Defender – CMS Tests. Image source: BlogDefender.com)

WordPress Should Not Be Blamed

Whenever WordPress sites are attacked en masse, you shouldn’t be quick to blame the WordPress CMS platform.

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” published by a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises called StopBadware and security vendor Commtouch, most webmasters have no idea about the threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or how to deal with compromises.

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

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

Of 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 security issues come from sites running an outdated WordPress version. Screenshot: 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 70% – 75% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally …

(WP Security Issues. Screenshot: WebDesign.org)

Like many modern software platforms, WordPress is updated regularly in order to deal with new security issues that can arise. Improving security is an ongoing concern, and to that end, you should always keep your WordPress site, themes, and plugins up-to-date.

WordPress Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Businesses!

The amount of misinformation about how secure WordPress is has even caused the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, to chime into the online debate.

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, including banks, global corporations and e-commerce sites use WordPress to build their websites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors That Can Affect WP Blog Security

Other factors that can affect site security include things such as:

• No platform is protected from hacking. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to using software that is out of date.
• The main security vulnerability in all content management systems seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring good password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. Security systems need to be frequently monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Hosting setup. For example, websites on shared hosting are only as safe as the least safe website on the hosting grid, so if someone else on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then all sites on the server can potentially become vulnerable.

There Is No Reason Why You Shouldn’t Use WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is as secure as most of the leading web platforms being used by businesses to build their presence online. As long as you commit to implementing basic web security measures (which all website owners should do, regardless of their web platform) and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) regularly updated, there’s really no reason why you should not choose WordPress to drive your web site or blog.

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 vulnerable web site provides malicious users with a platform to launch distributed 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:

• Protect Your WordPress Website From Botnets & Hackers With Blog Defender

If you are currently using an older WordPress version make sure you 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 things back to their previous settings.

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

Article 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 website and how WordPress can help you grow your business online. To learn more about the security benefits of using the WordPress website publishing software please see our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles are published.

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