In 2013 a global brute-force attack began hitting WordPress installations across almost every WP host server in existence around the world.

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

(Powering millions of websites and blogs worldwide makes WordPress an obvious target for attempted attacks by hackers)

In March 2014, many technology sites began reporting that 160,000+ WordPress-powered 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 reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When global attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for people to question if WordPress really is a secure application for building and running their sites.

Powering millions of websites and blogs worldwide makes WordPress an obvious target for hacker attacks. But do you really need to be concerned about WordPress as being 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 concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is rising, and the situation is only going to get worse.

It’s safe to assume that if your website or blog hasn’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time before someone attempts 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 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 Unsafe?”

Some people will often try to argue that WordPress cannot be a safe platform for running a website or blog because its “open source” code is freely available.

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

The argument, then, goes something like this: If anyone can access the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily download the code and study it in great detail, looking for holes and weaknesses in the code that could be exploited …

(It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when before a malicious user attempts 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 security vulnerabilities and weaknesses (hackers can do the same with any software application), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source platform actually makes it a lot more secure in many ways.

The reason for this is that WordPress has the support of an open community comprised 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 of developers around the world build, maintain and update. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress continually evolves largely through the effort of thousands of committed volunteers working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. Everyone benefits from thousands of web developers, designers and users who are dedicated to improving the software, fixing bugs and making WordPress safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built and maintained by an open community of contributors. Screenshot source: make.wordpress.org)

The moment that any security vulnerability is discovered by developers or users, these are then noted in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core developers …

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

The WordPress community support system is quite formidable and anyone can contribute to the improvement of the platform.

For example:

• If you find bugs or a security vulnerability, you can report these by notifying security@wordpress.org.
• If you find any issues in a WordPress plugin, you can also report these by emailing plugins@wordpress.org.

This is the reason why the core development team releases new updates so frequently, and why you continually need to keep your WordPress site frequently updated …

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

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary Applications

Compare the benefits of using an open source CMS technology like WordPress with proprietary 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 quickly understand the security benefits of using WordPress to power your site on a secure platform.

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

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source Applications

(CMS Platforms)

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

For example, here is one study showing how many security vulnerabilities were found in popular open source platforms during a certain period …

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

Other studies also indicate that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and to keep up-to-date, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security vulnerabilities, WordPress sites had significantly less exposure to risk …

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

Don’t Blame WordPress

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

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” published by security organizations Commtouch and StopBadware, 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 security compromises.

In fact, 63% of webmasters surveyed for the report didn’t know how their websites had been compromised after an attack …

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

Of immediate concern, however, is the fact that most security problems seem to be related to website owners running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

(Many WordPress sites are running on outdated versions. Image source: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only around between 25% – 35% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in third-party code are found in the WordPress core software, while 65% – 85% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

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

Like many modern software applications, WordPress is regularly updated in order to deal with new security threats that can arise. Improving security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep your WordPress software, themes, and plugins updated to the latest version.

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 discussion.

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 use WordPress to build their websites, including banks, large organizations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Issues That Can Affect Blog Security

Other research on issues that affect WordPress security point to areas such as:

• No platform is completely protected from hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to attack, mostly due to using outdated software.
• The biggest security weakness 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. All security processes need regular monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Hosting setup. For example, sites on shared hosting servers are only as secure as the least secure site on the grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then every site on your server is potentially vulnerable to hacking as well.

There Is No Reason Why You Should Not Use WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is as secure as most other leading web platforms being used by businesses of all sizes to build their presence online. As long as you commit to implementing basic website security measures and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) regularly up-to-date, there is really no reason to avoid choosing WordPress to power your web site or blog.

WordPress Security – Useful Tips

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

An unsecured website offers malicious users with a platform to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin for WordPress makes your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks. Go here to learn more:

• Protect Your WordPress Website From Hackers With Blog Defender Security Plugin

If you are using older WordPress versions make sure to back up your website before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Backup, Duplicate And Keep Your WP Web Sites Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

References

For more information on the above, see the following sources:

• 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 grow your business online. To learn more about using the WordPress web content publishing software please click on links to visit other posts published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles are published.

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