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

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

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

In March 2014, many leading technology sites began reporting that over 162,000 WordPress websites had been hacked.

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in March 2014. Source: BlogDefender website)

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 well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

Whenever brute force attacks on WordPress sites increase in frequency, it’s natural for people to start asking just how safe and secure WordPress is as a software for building and running websites.

WordPress is often the target of attacks by hackers, due to its global popularity. But should you be concerned about WordPress as a secure web platform?

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

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is massive, and things are getting worse.

It’s probably safe to 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 a matter of when before your website will be targeted by hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

How Secure Is “Open Source” Software?

Many people argue that WordPress should not be used for running a website or blog because its “open source” code is freely available.

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

The argument, then, goes something like this: If everyone can examine the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily download the code and go through every single line in detail, looking for security vulnerabilities they can exploit …

(It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website is targeted by hackers … 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 and weaknesses that can be exploited (hackers can do the same with any software program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open application actually makes it a whole lot more secure in several ways.

This is because WordPress has the support of a community of thousands of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help to improve the platform and make WordPress more secure …

(The WordPress core application is built, maintained and updated by a community of hundreds of volunteers worldwide. Source: WordPress.org)

WordPress evolves through the effort of a huge community working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from thousands of individuals committed to improving the application, fixing bugs and making it safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built by an open community of volunteer members. Screenshot: WordPress.org)

The moment that a security hole is identified by developers or users, these are normally logged in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core development team …

(WordPress is continually being improved upon by a huge community community of developers and users. Image source: WordPress.org)

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is very responsive and anybody can contribute to the improvement of the platform.

For example:

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

This is why WordPress is constantly releasing new updates, and why you continually need to keep your WordPress sites and blogs regularly maintained …

(WordPress frequently releases new version updates to plug any security issues found)

WordPress Vs Proprietary Platforms

Compare what we have just discussed above with proprietary CMS platforms where often the responsibility for maintaining software security, fixing bugs, etc. falls to a smaller team of developers with limited resources and you will very quickly understand the security benefits of using WordPress to power your web presence on a secure platform.

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

WordPress Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms - WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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

For example, here is one study showing how many security vulnerabilities were discovered in popular open source CMS platforms …

(National Vulnerability Database – Security Vulnerabilities IN CMS Platforms. Screenshot: National Vulnerability Database)

Other research indicates that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and to keep updated, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security vulnerabilities, sites built with WordPress had fewer exposure to risk …

(WordPress is safer to use than other leading CMS applications. Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)

WordPress Is Not At Fault

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

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” which is published by security organizations Commtouch and StopBadware, a large number of webmasters have no idea about the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to properly secure a website, or deal with compromised web security.

In fact, 63% of webmasters surveyed for the report didn’t even know how their sites were compromised by hackers after an attack …

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

Of more immediate concern for WordPress users, however, is the fact that many security-related issues result from website owners running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

(Many security issues come from sites running outdated WordPress versions. Image source: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only a small percentage of vulnerabilities discovered in third-party code are actually found in the WordPress CMS core, while 65% – 85% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally …

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

Like many modern web platforms, WordPress is updated regularly to deal with new security risks 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 software, plugins, themes, etc..

WordPress … Secure Enough For Banks To Use!

The amount of misinformation about WordPress security has even led the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, 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 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, leading brands and e-commerce sites choose WordPress to build their web presence, not just bloggers.

Other Issues That Can Affect Security

Other areas that can affect security include:

• No platform is completely safe from hacking. 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 vulnerability of all content management platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring good password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. All security systems need regular monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Server setup. For example, sites on shared hosting are only as safe as the least secure website on the hosting grid, so if another user has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then every site on the shared server is potentially vulnerable to being hacked also.

There Is No Reason To Avoid Choosing WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is a secure web platform. As long as you commit to implementing basic web security measures (which all website owners should do) and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) up-to-date, there is no reason why you should not choose WordPress.

WordPress Security – Practical Tips

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

An unsecured website provides malicious users with a resource to launch distributed attacks, spread 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:

• Blog Defender Security Plugin For WordPress Websites – Make Your Web Site Unseen By Botnets And Hackers

If you are currently using an outdated version of WordPress make sure to back up your website fully before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore everything to its previous settings.

If you don’t want to back up your files manually, there are many free and paid plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Back Up, Duplicate And Protect Your WordPress Web Sites With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

References

The above statistics were referenced from various sources, including those listed below:

• ITProPortal.com
• National Vulnerability Database
• BlogDefender.com
• UpAndUpStudios.com
• StopBadware.org
• Sucuri.net
• WebDesign.org
• Quora.com
• Ma.tt

Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of problems 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 for a business website or blog please click on links to visit other articles we have published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new content is published.

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