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 viruses and programmed to attack other vulnerable installations, also commonly known as “botnets”.

(WordPress is frequently the target of malicious attempts by hackers)

In March 2014, technology sites reported that over 162,000 WordPress sites had been hacked.

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

When worldwide brute-force attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for website owners to start asking if WordPress really is a secure application for running their sites.

WordPress powers millions of websites around the world, which makes it an obvious target for attempted attacks by malicious users. 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 choosing WordPress if you are at all concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with 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 increasing on a daily basis, and things are only going to get 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 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?

The “Open Source” Argument

Some people often argue that WordPress should not be used for building and running a website or blog because it is “open source” and freely available software application.

Open-source CMS software like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone has access to the underlying 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 the code and study every single line, looking for security vulnerabilities in the code that can be exploited …

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but when before a malicious user attempts to hack your website … 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 holes and vulnerabilities (hackers can do the same with any software application), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source platform actually makes it more secure in many ways.

The reason for this is that WordPress is supported by an open volunteer community comprised of thousands of people such as software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help to improve the platform and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, a volunteer community of thousands of web developers is responsible for keeping the platform code updated. Source: WordPress.org)

WordPress continually evolves because of the effort of a global volunteer community working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from thousands of web developers, designers and users dedicated to improving the software and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built by a global community of contributors. Source: make.wordpress.org)

As soon as any security vulnerability is identified by developers or users, the WordPress developers are then notified …

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

The WordPress community support system is very responsive and anybody can help contribute to improving the software.

For example:

• If you notice bugs or security holes, you can report these by notifying 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 one of the reasons why the WordPress team releases new version updates on a regular basis, and why you continually need to keep your WordPress site updated …

(WordPress frequently releases new updates to plug security weaknesses)

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

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

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms - WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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

For example, here is one study showing the number of security vulnerabilities discovered in popular open source platforms during a certain period …

(National Vulnerability Database – Security Vulnerabilities IN CMS Applications. Source: National Vulnerability Database)

Other research shows that, because WordPress is easy to use and maintain, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security vulnerabilities, WordPress sites had fewer exposure to risk …

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

It’s Easier To Blame Technology When Things Go Wrong

When WordPress sites get attacked en masse, don’t be quick to place the blame on WordPress.

According to security vendor Commtouch and StopBadware, a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises in a published report entitled “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective“, many webmasters have no idea about the threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or deal with compromised web security.

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

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

Of more immediate concern, however, is the fact that many security problems seem to be related to website owners running WordPress on outdated versions of the software …

(Many WordPress sites are running on outdated versions. Screenshot: 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 found in the WordPress CMS core, while 65% – 85% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally …

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

Like all robust web platforms, WordPress is updated regularly in order to deal with new security issues 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 Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Businesses!

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

In a blog 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 use WordPress to build their presence online, including banks, large organizations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Issues Affecting Site Security

Other research on issues that play a role in website security point to areas like:

• No platform is completely safe from hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to attack, mostly due to using outdated software.
• The main vulnerability of all web platforms seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore good password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security processes need to be regularly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Hosting server setup. For example, websites on shared hosting servers are only as secure as the least safe site on the hosting grid, so if someone else on your shared server gets their site broken into, then every site on your server can potentially become vulnerable.

There Is No Reason Why You Should Not Choose WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is as secure as most of the leading web platforms being used by businesses to build their presence online. As long as you continue to implement basic security measures (which all website owners should do, regardless of their chosen technology platform) and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) updated, there’s really no reason why you should not use WordPress.

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 site offers hackers with a platform to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers. Learn more about this plugin here:

• Prevent Bots & Hackers From Finding Your Website

If you are using older versions of WordPress remember to back up your WordPress files before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore things back to their former settings.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many 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, Clone And Protect Your WP Websites And Blogs With Backup Creator WP Plugin

Article References

The above facts 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, the above 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 please see other articles published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new content is published.

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