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

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

(Powering millions of websites and blogs around the world makes WordPress a target for attacks by malicious users)

In March 2014, technology sites began reporting that 160,000+ legitimate WordPress websites had been hacked.

(Over 160,000 WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Screenshot image: 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 well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

Whenever brute force attacks on WordPress sites happen, it’s natural for people to start questioning just how safe and secure WordPress is as a software for running a business web presence.

Being the world’s most popular CMS makes WordPress a target for hacking. But do you really 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 definitely consider choosing WordPress if you are concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at some facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and this is only going to get 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 a matter of when before a malicious user tries to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

”Isn’t Open Source Software Extremely Vulnerable?”

Many people argue that WordPress is not a safe platform for running websites because having open source code means that anyone can view how the software application code works.

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

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

(It’s not a matter of if, but 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 access it and study the code looking for security weaknesses and vulnerabilities they can exploit (hackers can do the same with any software program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open software platform actually makes it a whole lot more secure in several ways.

The reason for this is that WordPress has the support of a large community that consists of hundreds of people such as software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

(An open volunteer community maintain and update. Screenshot: WordPress.org)

WordPress continually evolves because of the effort of a global volunteer community working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. Everyone benefits from thousands of individuals who are dedicated to improving the application, fixing bugs and making WordPress safer for every user …

(WordPress is built and maintained by a large community of web developers. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

The moment that any security issue is identified by developers or users, these are normally noted in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core developers …

(WordPress is continually being improved by an open community of users and developers. Screenshot image: make.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 come across bugs or security exploits, you can report these by sending an email to security@wordpress.org.
• If you find any issues in a WordPress plugin, you can also report these by sending an email to plugins@wordpress.org.

This is why the core development team releases new security updates so frequently, and why you continually need to keep your sites and blogs updated and maintained …

(WordPress continually releases new updates to address security vulnerabilities)

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary CMS Applications

Compare what we have just discussed above with proprietary CMS technologies where often the responsibility for improving 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 power your websites and blogs on a secure platform.

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

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

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

For example, here is one study showing how many security vulnerabilities were discovered in each of these platforms during a certain period …

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

Other research indicates that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and keep up-to-date, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security issues, sites built with WordPress had less exposure to risk …

(WordPress has less exposure to risk than other CMS platforms. Source: BlogDefender.com)

WordPress Is Not Always To Blame

Whenever WordPress sites are subjected to brute-force attacks, don’t be quick to place the blame on the WordPress CMS platform.

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, most website owners are not fully aware of the threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or how to deal with compromises.

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

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

Of more immediate concern is the fact that most security-related problems come from users not upgrading their CMS software to a newer version …

(Many security issues come from sites running an outdated version of WordPress. Screenshot: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only between 25% – 30% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in third-party code are actually found in the WordPress CMS core, while 65% – 80% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions created by third-party developers …

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

Like all robust web platforms, WordPress is updated regularly in order to deal with new security threats that can 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, themes, plugins, etc..

WordPress … Good 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 online 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 around the world choose WordPress to build their websites, including banks, large organizations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors That Can Affect Security

Other factors that can affect security include:

• No platform is completely immune to security threats. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to attack, mostly due to using software that is out of date.
• The biggest security threat of all web platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security systems need to be regularly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Hosting setup. For example, websites on shared hosting accounts are only as secure as the least safe site on the hosting grid, so if another user has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then all sites on that server can potentially become vulnerable to hacking as well.

There’s No Reason Not To Use WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is quite secure. As long as you continue to implement basic security measures and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) updated, there’s no reason to avoid using WordPress to run your web site or blog.

WordPress Security – Tips

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

An unsecured website presents hackers with a resource to launch distributed attacks, spread malware and use your website to defraud innocent people. Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers. Learn more about this plugin here:

• Blog Defender – Make Your Blogs Hidden To Hackers & Botnets

If you are using outdated versions of WordPress remember to back up your website 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 fully automate your backup process here: Back Up, Copy & Keep Your WordPress Websites Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

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, this information has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To learn more about using WordPress please click on links to visit our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new content is published.

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