In 2013 a worldwide brute force attack struck WordPress installations across almost every WP host server in existence around the world.

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

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

In March 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com began reporting that over 160,000+ legitimate WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.

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

When worldwide brute force attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for website owners to start asking if WordPress really is a safe software for running an online presence.

WordPress often comes under attack by hackers, due to its popularity. But do you need to be concerned about WordPress as a secure platform for building your business website?

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

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with the facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and things are only going to get 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 does attempt 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 when before a malicious user will attempt to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

How Secure Are “Open Source” Programs?

Some people will often argue that WordPress should not be used for building and running a business online 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 software code.

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

(It’s not a matter of if, but when before someone attempts to hack your website … WordPress or no WordPress!)

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

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

(With WordPress, a huge volunteer community of developers is responsible for keeping the software code updated. Image source: WordPress.org)

WordPress evolves because of the effort of hundreds of committed individuals 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 WordPress safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built and maintained by a large community of contributors. Source: WordPress.org)

The moment any security holes are identified by developers or users, the WordPress core development team are then made aware of it …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is quite formidable and anybody can help contribute to securing the software.

For example:

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

This is one of the reasons why the WordPress team is constantly releasing new updates, and why you continually need to keep your sites and blogs frequently up-to-date …

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

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary Applications

We’ve just seen that one of the security advantages of using an ”open” technology like WordPress is that users benefit from a large community of developers who continually contribute to make the software more secure. By contrast, proprietary or “closed-source” CMS applications are normally developed by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, software maintenance, bug fixes and software fixes.

The WordPress CMS is free to download, use and modify, and hundreds 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 Vs Other Open Source Applications

(CMS Platforms include WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management applications, there is valid research to support the fact that the WordPress CMS is actually safer than other leading Open Source CMS platforms like Drupal and Joomla.

For example, here is one study showing the number of security vulnerabilities found in each of these platforms during a certain period …

(WordPress experiences fewer security vulnerabilities than other leading CMS platforms. Screenshot image: National Vulnerability Database)

Other studies also show that, because WordPress is easy to use and update, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security exploits, WordPress sites had less exposure to risk …

(WordPress users are less exposed to risks than other CMS platform users. Image source: BlogDefender.com)

WordPress Is Not To Blame

When WordPress sites are subjected to brute-force attacks, you shouldn’t be 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, most webmasters are not fully aware of the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to properly 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 hacked after an attack …

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

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

(Many security issues come from sites running an outdated version of WordPress. Screenshot image: 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 actually found in the WordPress CMS core, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally for WordPress …

(WP Security Issues. Screenshot: WebDesign.org)

Like all robust web platforms, WordPress is regularly updated in order to address new security problems 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 Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Businesses!

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

In an article entitled “A Bank Website on WordPress” published 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, including banks, global corporations and e-commerce sites choose WordPress to build their websites, not just bloggers.

Other Issues That Can Affect Security

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

• No platform is completely protected from security threats. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to using outdated software.
• The main risk of all CMS platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. All security processes require constant monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Server setup. For example, websites on shared webhosting servers are only as secure as the least safe website on the grid, so if someone else on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then all sites on your server can potentially become vulnerable to hacking as well.

There Is No Reason Why You Shouldn’t Choose WordPress

As you can see, 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 security measures and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) regularly updated, there is no reason not to choose WordPress.

WordPress Security – Tips

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

A compromised site provides hackers with a valuable platform for launching distributed attacks, spreading malware and engaging in information theft. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks. Learn more about it here:

• How To Prevent Malicious Attacks On Your WP Web Sites From Hackers & Bots With Blog Defender Security Plugin

If you are using outdated versions of WordPress make sure to make a complete backup 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 former settings.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone And Keep Your WP Websites And Blogs Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

References Used In This Article

The statistics quoted in this article 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, the above information has given you 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 using WordPress for a business web site please click on links to visit other posts we have published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles are published.

***