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

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

(WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS making it a frequent target for hacking attempts)

On March 11, 2014, many technology sites began reporting that over 160,000+ WordPress-powered sites 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 described by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

Whenever global attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for website owners to start questioning just how secure WordPress is as an application for building and running a business web presence.

WordPress often is targeted by hackers, due to its popularity. But do you really need to be concerned about WordPress as being a secure platform for building your business presence online?

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

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at some 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 rising, and things are only going to get worse.

It’s probably safe to assume that if you haven’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time … regardless of the web platform you use!

Since it’s no longer a matter of if, but when before someone will attempt to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

Is “Open Source” Safe From Hacking?

Many people will often try and argue that WordPress is not a secure platform for building and running websites because having open source code means that anyone can view how the software runs.

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

The argument against WordPress, then, goes something like this: If everyone can access the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily obtain the code and go through every single line, looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities that could be exploited …

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website is targeted by malicious hackers … WordPress or no WordPress!)

While it’s true that WordPress is a free application and hackers can easily go through the code looking for weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited (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 many ways.

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

(WordPress is built, maintained and updated by a huge community of developers worldwide. Source: WordPress.org)

WordPress evolves because of the effort of hundreds of committed individuals working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. Everyone benefits from hundreds of web developers, designers and users committed to improving the application and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(WordPress is built and maintained by a large community of experienced web developers. Screenshot image: make.wordpress.org)

The moment that a security problem is identified by developers or users, the WordPress core development team are then made aware of it …

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

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

For example:

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

This is the reason why WordPress is constantly releasing new version updates, and why you need to keep your site regularly up-to-date …

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

WordPress Vs Proprietary Applications

We’ve just seen that one of the security advantages of using an open source technology like WordPress is that users benefit from a large community of developers who continually contribute to make the software more secure. By contrast, a proprietary or “closed-source” software application is built by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, software maintenance, bug fixes and updates.

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

WordPress Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management applications, there is valid research showing that WordPress 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 found in popular open source CMS platforms …

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

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

(WordPress users are not as exposed to risks as other CMS platform users. Source: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame The Technology

If someone compromises the security of your WordPress site, don’t be too quick to place the blame on the WordPress CMS platform.

According to a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises called StopBadware and security vendor Commtouch in a published report entitled “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective“, 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 compromises.

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

(Most webmasters don’t know how their sites get hacked. Screenshot source: StopBadware.org)

Of more 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 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 found in the WordPress CMS core, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

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

Like many web platforms, WordPress is updated regularly to deal with new security vulnerabilities that may arise. Improving security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep your WordPress software, themes, and plugins up-to-date.

WordPress Is Secure – Even Banks Use It!

The amount of misinformation about how secure WordPress is has even caused Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, 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 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 choose WordPress to build their websites, including banks, leading brands, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors That Can Affect Security

Other areas that can affect WP security include factors like:

• No platform is safe from hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to outdated software.
• The biggest threat in all CMS platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security processes require regular monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Server setup. For example, sites on shared hosting are only as safe as the least secure site on the hosting grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site broken into, then all sites on your server can potentially become vulnerable.

There’s No Reason To Avoid Using WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is quite secure. As long as you commit to implementing basic security measures and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) updated, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t choose WordPress to run your website 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

A compromised website provides hackers with a platform for launching distributed attacks, spreading malware and engaging in information theft. Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to botnets and hackers. Learn more about this plugin here:

• Prevent Bots & Hackers From Finding & Attacking Your WordPress Blogs With Blog Defender Security Plugin

If you are using outdated versions of WordPress make sure you make a backup before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore everything to its previous settings.

If you don’t want to back up your site manually, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Clone & Protect Your WP Web Site With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

References Used In This Article

The facts quoted in this article were referenced from various online 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 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 web site please click on links to visit our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles or tutorials are published.

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