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

These attacks were caused by computer networks infected with malware and programmed to attack other sites, also commonly known as “botnets”.

(WordPress is often the target of attacks by hackers)

On March 11, 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com began reporting that over 162,000 WordPress sites had been hacked.

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Screenshot: 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 web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

Whenever brute force attacks on WordPress sites take place on such a wide scale, it’s natural for website owners to question just how safe and secure WordPress is as a software for running their sites.

Being the world’s most popular CMS makes WordPress a target for hacking attempts. 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 use 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 sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and things are getting worse.

It’s 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 you use!

Since it’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when before a malicious user will attempt to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

The “Open Source” Argument For Security Weaknesses

Many people will often argue that WordPress is not a safe platform for building and running websites or blogs because its “open source” code is freely available.

Open source CMS platforms like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone can view the software code.

The argument against WordPress, then, goes something like this: If everyone can access the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can easily obtain all of the code and go through it in detail, searching for weaknesses and vulnerabilities that they could exploit …

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

While it’s true that WordPress is free to download and hackers can easily go through the code looking for vulnerabilities and weaknesses they can exploit (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 a number of ways.

This is because WordPress has the support of a huge volunteer community comprised of hundreds of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help to improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

(A volunteer community of web developers around the world is responsible for building, maintaining and updating the WordPress software platform. Screenshot source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress continually evolves because of the effort of a huge community working around the clock to fix issues. It benefits from thousands of minds dedicated to improving the software, identifying and fixing security holes and making WordPress safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built by a global community of users. Screenshot image: WordPress.org)

The moment that any security vulnerability is discovered by developers or users, the WordPress core developers are then made aware of it …

(WordPress is continually being improved upon by thousands of committed individuals community of developers and users. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

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

For example:

• If you discover bugs or a security weakness, 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 one of the reasons why the core development team releases new version updates so frequently, and why you need to keep your site updated …

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

WordPress Vs Proprietary 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, a proprietary or “closed-source” software application is typically developed by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, software maintenance, bug fixes and updates.

WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify, and thousands of volunteers and expert developers are continually working to improve the technology. Can a proprietary technology company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver users a completely free software that they can download, use and modify as they wish?

WordPress Vs Other Open Source Applications

(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 WordPress is safer than other Open Source CMS platforms such as Drupal and Joomla.

For example, the chart below shows how many security vulnerabilities were discovered in each of these open source platforms during a given period …

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

Other research shows that, because WordPress is easy to use and keep updated, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security issues, WordPress sites had significantly less exposure to risk …

(Blog Defender – CMS Tests. Image source: BlogDefender.com)

The WordPress CMS Is Not To Blame

Whenever WordPress sites are attacked en masse, users shouldn’t be quick to blame WordPress.

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” which is published by security organizations Commtouch and StopBadware, most website owners are not fully aware of the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or deal with compromised web security.

In fact, over 60% of webmasters surveyed in this report didn’t even know how their sites were hacked after an attack …

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

Of more immediate concern is the fact that many security issues seem to be related to site owners not upgrading their CMS software to a newer version …

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

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only a small percentage of vulnerabilities discovered in third-party code are actually found in the WordPress core software, while 70% – 75% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

(WordPress Security Issues. Image source: WebDesign.org)

Like many modern software applications, WordPress is updated regularly in order to address new security vulnerabilities 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.

WordPress Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Businesses!

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

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

Other Areas Affecting Security

Other issues 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 being attacked, mostly due to using outdated software.
• The biggest weakness in 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 processes require frequent monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Hosting setup. For example, websites on shared webhosting accounts are only as safe as the least safe website on the hosting grid, so if someone else on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then all sites on your server become vulnerable to being hacked as well.

There’s No Reason Not To Use WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is quite secure. As long as you implement basic security measures (which all website owners should do) and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) regularly updated, there’s really no reason why you should not choose WordPress to drive your web site or blog.

WordPress Security – Tips

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

A compromised website provides hackers with a resource to launch distributed attacks, spread malware and use your site to steal information from others. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets. Learn more about this plugin here:

• How To Prevent Bots And Hackers From Attacking Your Blog With Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin

If you are currently using an outdated version of WordPress remember to back up your website fully before updating your software to protect your site from the latest security risks. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore things back to their previous state.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here: Backup, Duplicate & Keep Your WP Web Site Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

References Used In This Article

The statistics quoted above 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, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you grow your business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business web site please click on links to visit our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles are published.

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