In early 2013 a global brute-force attack began hitting WordPress installations across virtually every host server in existence around the world.

These attacks were caused by computers infected with malware and programmed to attack other sites (called “botnets”).

(WordPress often is targeted by hackers, due to its popularity)

On March 11, 2014, many leading technology sites reported that over 160,000+ legitimate WordPress web 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 well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

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

WordPress is often the target of attacks by hackers. But do you need to be concerned about WordPress as a secure web platform?

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 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 rising, and this is only going to get worse.

It’s safe to assume that if you haven’t been hacked yet, then it’s inevitable that at some point in time someone will 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 a matter of when before a malicious user attempts to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

Is “Open Source” Software Really Safe?

Some people will often try and argue that WordPress should not be used for building and running a business online because it’s “open source” and freely available software application.

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

The argument, then, goes something like this: If everyone can study the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily get hold of the code and study every line, searching for security vulnerabilities in the code that could be exploited …

(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 a free application and hackers can easily go through the code searching for weaknesses and vulnerabilities that can be exploited (hackers can do the same with any software program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source platform actually makes it a lot more secure in several ways.

This is because WordPress has the support of an open community of hundreds of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

(WordPress is built, maintained and updated by a community of hundreds of developers worldwide. Screenshot image: WordPress.org)

WordPress continually evolves largely through the effort of a huge community working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from thousands of minds who, at any one time, are focused on improving the application, fixing bugs and making it safer for every user …

(WordPress is built and maintained by an open community of experienced web developers. Screenshot source: WordPress.org)

As soon as a security weakness is identified by developers or users, the WordPress development team are then notified …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is solid and formidable and anyone can contribute to the process of addressing vulnerabilities.

For example:

• If you find bugs and security weaknesses, you can report these by sending an email to security@wordpress.org.
• If you find issues in a WP plugin, you can report these by notifying plugins@wordpress.org.

This is why the WordPress community is constantly releasing new version updates, and why you need to keep your sites and blogs updated and maintained …

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

WordPress Vs Proprietary CMS Platforms

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 code security. By contrast, proprietary or “closed-source” CMS applications are developed by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, support, bug fixes and updates.

WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify, and thousands of volunteers and expert developers work on improving the technology. Can a proprietary CMS company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver users a completely free platform that they can download, use and modify as they wish?

WordPress Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

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

For example, the chart below shows the number of security vulnerabilities found in each of these open source platforms during a certain period …

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

Other studies also indicate that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and keep updated, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security vulnerabilities, WordPress sites had a significant degree of less exposure to risk …

(WordPress users are not as exposed to security threats as other CMS platform users. Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)

WordPress Is Not At Fault

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

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

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

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

Of immediate concern is the fact that many security issues seem to be related to website owners forgetting to update their CMS software to a newer version …

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

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only around between 20% – 35% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in third-party code are actually found in the WordPress core software, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions created by 3rd-party developers …

(WordPress Security Issues. Screenshot image: WebDesign.org)

Like many modern web applications, WordPress is regularly updated to deal with new security threats 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 Used By Many Security-Conscious Organizations!

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

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 choose WordPress to build their web presence, including banks, large organizations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Areas Affecting Website Security

Other factors that can affect blog security include areas such as:

• No platform is completely protected from hackers. 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 threat of 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. All security systems require frequent monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Server setup. For example, websites on shared webhosting accounts are only as secure as the least secure site on the grid, so if someone else on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then every site on that shared server is potentially vulnerable.

There’s No Reason Not To Use WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is a secure web platform. As long as you commit to implementing basic security measures (which all website owners should do, regardless of their technology platform) and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) regularly updated, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t use WordPress.

WordPress Security – Useful Tips

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

A compromised web site provides malicious users with a valuable resource for launching denial of service attacks, spreading malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks. Learn more about this plugin here:

• How To Protect Your WordPress Site From Bots And Hackers

If you are using outdated WordPress versions remember to make a 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 your web site or blog to its previous configuration.

If you don’t want to back up your site manually, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Backup, Duplicate And Protect Your WordPress Websites And Blogs With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

Article References

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 issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better 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 whenever new articles are published.

***