In 2013 a global brute force attack hit WordPress installations across almost every WP hosting server in existence around the world.

These attacks were caused by botnets (computers infected with viruses and programmed to attack other installations with security vulnerabilities).

(WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS making it a natural target for hacking)

On March 11, 2014, many leading technology sites reported that over 162,000 legitimate WordPress-powered web sites had been hacked.

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

Whenever attacks on WordPress sites increase in frequency, it’s natural for website owners to question just how secure the WordPress platform is for running their websites.

WordPress powers millions of websites around the world, which makes it a frequent target for hacking attacks. But should you really be concerned about WordPress as a secure web platform?

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

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with the facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and it’s 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 not a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website will be targeted by malicious hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

How Secure Are “Open Source” Software Programs?

Some people will often try to argue that WordPress should not be used for running a website or blog because it’s a freely available open source software program.

Open-source CMS platforms like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone has access to the software code.

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

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but 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 security holes or weaknesses that can be exploited (hackers can do the same with any program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open software platform actually makes it a lot more secure in many ways.

This is because WordPress has the support of a volunteer community comprised 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 community of thousands of developers is responsible for keeping the platform code up-to-date. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress evolves largely through the effort of a huge volunteer community working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. It benefits from thousands of minds dedicated to improving the application, fixing bugs and making it safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built and maintained by a global community of experienced web developers. Image: make.wordpress.org)

The moment that any security problem is discovered by developers or users, these are normally reported in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core developers …

(WordPress is continually being improved by thousands of committed individuals community of users and web developers. Screenshot: WordPress.org)

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

For example:

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

This is the reason why the WordPress community is constantly releasing new security updates, and why you continually need to keep your WordPress site regularly updated …

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

WordPress Vs Proprietary Applications

Contrast the benefits of using an open source CMS platform like WordPress with proprietary CMS platforms where often the responsibility for maintaining software security, fixing bugs, etc. falls to a small team of developers with limited resources and you will very quickly understand the security benefits of using WordPress to run your web presence on a secure platform.

WordPress is 100% free to download, modify and use, 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 Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management systems, research shows that WordPress is 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 open source platforms during a given period …

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

Other studies show that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and keep up-to-date, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security exploits, sites built with WordPress had significantly less exposure to risk …

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

The WordPress CMS Is Not To Blame

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

According to security organizations Commtouch and StopBadware in a published report entitled “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective“, most webmasters have no idea about the threats their websites are exposed to, how to properly secure a website, or how to deal with security compromises.

In fact, over sixty percent of webmasters surveyed for the report didn’t know how their websites were hacked after an attack …

(Many webmasters don’t know how their sites were hacked. Source: StopBadware.org)

Of more immediate concern for WordPress users, however, is the fact that most security-related problems come from website owners running WordPress on outdated versions of the software …

(Many WordPress sites use outdated versions. Screenshot: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only around between 25% – 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 third-party developers …

(WP Security Issues. Image: WebDesign.org)

Like many modern web applications, WordPress is updated regularly to address new security threats that could arise. Improving software security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep up to date with the latest version of WordPress.

WordPress … Good Enough For Banks To Use!

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

In a post 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 around the world choose WordPress to build their websites, including banks, global corporations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors That Can Affect Website Security

Other studies on issues that affect website security point to areas like:

• No platform is protected from hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to attack, mostly due to outdated software.
• The biggest security weakness in all content management platforms seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore strong password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant monitoring. All security processes need to be constantly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Webhosting server setup. For example, sites on shared webhosting are only as secure as the least safe website on the hosting grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then every site on the shared server is potentially vulnerable.

There’s No Reason Why You Should Not 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) and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) regularly updated, there’s really no reason not to use WordPress for your website or blog.

WordPress Security – Practical Tips

To learn about ways to protect your WordPress site from brute-force attacks see this article:  10 Security Measures That Can Help To Prevent Brute-Force Attacks On WordPress

A vulnerable website presents hackers with a platform to launch distributed attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots. Go here to learn more:

• Prevent Malicious Cyberattacks On Your WordPress Web Site From Hackers & Botnets

If you are using outdated versions of WordPress make sure to make a full site 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. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Backup, Clone And Protect Your WP Website With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

Article References

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, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To learn more about the security benefits of using WordPress for a business web site please click on links to visit other articles we have published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles or tutorials are published.

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