In 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to global-scale brute force attacks.

These attacks were caused by networks of infected computers programmed to attack other installations, also commonly known as “botnets”.

(WordPress is often the target of malicious attacks by hackers)

On March 11, 2014, many technology sites reported that 160,000+ 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)

As reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WP sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When worldwide brute force attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for website owners to start questioning if WordPress really is a secure platform for building and running websites.

WordPress is the world’s most used content management system making it an obvious target for hacking attempts. But do you need to be concerned about WordPress as being a secure platform for building your business web presence?

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 by looking at some 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 it’s getting worse.

You can safely assume that if your website or blog hasn’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 when before a malicious user attempts to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

The “Open Source” Software Argument

Some people will often argue that WordPress should not be used for building and running web sites 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 underlying software code.

The argument against using WordPress, then, goes something like this: If everyone can study the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can easily get hold of all of the code and go through all of it in detail, looking for holes and weaknesses that can be exploited …

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

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

This is because WordPress has the support of a huge volunteer community that consists of thousands of people such as software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help to improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, a large community of hundreds of web developers worldwide is responsible for keeping the code maintained and updated. Image source: WordPress.org)

WordPress continually evolves through the effort of a huge community working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from hundreds of web developers, designers and users dedicated to improving the application and making WordPress safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built by a global community of contributors. Image source: WordPress.org)

As soon as a security issue is identified by developers or users, these are normally logged in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core developers …

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

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

For example:

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

This is the reason why WordPress is constantly releasing new version updates, and why you need to keep your WordPress site frequently updated …

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

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary 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 make the code more secure. By contrast, proprietary or “closed-source” CMS applications are normally built by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, maintenance services, bug fixes and updates.

WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify, and hundreds 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 you a completely free platform that you can download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source Applications

(CMS Platforms include WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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

For example, here is one study showing the number of security vulnerabilities found in popular CMS platforms …

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

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

(WordPress has a significant degree of less exposure to risk than other CMS platforms. Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame WordPress When Things Go Wrong

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

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, many website owners have no idea about 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 in this report didn’t know how their sites were compromised by hackers after an attack …

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

Of more immediate concern for WordPress users, is the fact that most security-related problems come from site owners running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

(Many WordPress users have not updated their sites. Source: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only a small percentage of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are actually found in the WordPress core software, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

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

Like all robust web platforms, WordPress is updated regularly in order to address new security vulnerabilities that may arise. Improving software security is an ongoing concern, and to that end, you should always keep your WordPress site, themes, and plugins updated to the latest version.

WordPress … Good Enough For Banks To Use!

The amount of misinformation about how secure WordPress is has even led Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, to chime in and reply to posts online.

In an article 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, including banks, leading brands and e-commerce sites use WordPress to build their presence online, not just bloggers.

Other Issues That Can Affect Security

Other areas that can affect site security include:

• No platform is protected from hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to software that is out of date.
• The biggest security vulnerability of all content management systems seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. Security systems need to be regularly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Hosting server setup. For example, websites on shared webhosting servers are only as secure as the least safe website on the hosting grid, so if someone else has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then all sites on your server become vulnerable.

There’s No Reason To Avoid Using WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is a secure web platform. As long as you continue to implement basic security measures (which all website owners should do) and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) updated, there is no reason not to use WordPress.

WordPress Security – Practical Tips

To learn about ways to protect your WordPress site from brute-force attacks see this article:  Ten Security Measures That Can Help To Prevent Brute Force Attacks On WordPress

A vulnerable blog provides malicious users with a resource for distributed attacks, spreading malware and as a source of information theft. Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets. Go here to learn more:

• Prevent Botnets And Hackers From Finding Your Website

If you are currently using an older WordPress version remember to make a complete backup before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Duplicate And Protect Your WP Web Sites With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

References

The facts 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, now you have 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 the security benefits of 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 whenever new content is published.

***