In April 2013 a global brute-force attack hit WordPress installations on virtually every WP host server in existence.

These attacks were caused by botnets (infected computer networks programmed to attack other sites).

(WordPress is frequently the target of attacks by hackers, due to its global popularity)

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

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Screenshot: 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)

According to leading 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 worldwide attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for people to ask just how secure WordPress is as an application for running websites.

Being the world’s most popular CMS makes WordPress a target for hacking. But should you 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 use WordPress if you are at all 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 around the world is increasing on a daily basis, and it’s only going to get worse.

It’s safe to assume that if you haven’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 when before someone attempts to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

The “Open Source” Software Argument

Some people will often argue that WordPress should not be used for running websites and 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 have access to the entire underlying software code.

The argument against WordPress, then, goes something like this: If everyone can study the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can also easily obtain the code and study every single line in great detail, looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities that can be exploited …

(It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website will be targeted by malicious hackers … WordPress or no WordPress!)

While it’s true that WordPress is free to download and hackers can easily access it and study the code looking for holes and weaknesses (hackers can do the same with any software program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source application actually makes it a whole lot more secure in a number of ways.

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

(With WordPress, a huge community of hundreds of web developers is responsible for keeping the core application code updated. Source: WordPress.org)

WordPress continually evolves through the effort of hundreds of committed individuals working around the clock to fix issues. It benefits from thousands of web developers, designers and users who are dedicated to improving the software and making WordPress safer for every user …

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

The moment any security problems are identified by developers or users, the WordPress core developers are then made aware of it …

(WordPress is continually being improved by a global community community of users and web developers. Source: make.wordpress.org)

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is quite formidable and anyone can help contribute to improving the software.

For example:

• If you notice bugs or a security vulnerability, you can report these by sending an email to security@wordpress.org.
• If you find any issues in a plugin, you can also report these by sending an email to plugins@wordpress.org.

This is why WordPress is constantly releasing new updates, and why you continually need to keep your WordPress sites and blogs regularly updated …

(WordPress frequently releases new version updates to address security issues)

WordPress Vs Proprietary CMS Applications

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 software more secure. By contrast, a proprietary or “closed-source” CMS platform would normally be built by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, maintenance services, bug fixes and software fixes.

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 you a free CMS platform that you can download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management systems, there is valid research to support the fact that WordPress is actually safer than other Open Source CMS platforms such as Drupal and Joomla.

For example, here is one study showing the number of security vulnerabilities found in each of these open source platforms during a given period …

(WordPress has fewer security vulnerabilities than other leading CMS platforms. Screenshot source: National Vulnerability Database)

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

(BlogDefender.com – CMS Tests. Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame The Platform

When WordPress sites are subjected to brute-force attacks, users shouldn’t be too quick to blame WordPress.

According to security organizations Commtouch and StopBadware in a published report entitled “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective“, many website owners have no idea about the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or deal with web security compromises.

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

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

Of immediate concern is the fact that most security-related problems result from site 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 3rd-party code are found in the WordPress CMS core, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally for WordPress …

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

Like many modern web platforms, WordPress is regularly updated in order to address new security risks 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 software, themes, plugins, etc..

WordPress Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Businesses!

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

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, including banks, global corporations and e-commerce sites use WordPress to build their web presence, not just bloggers.

Other Factors That Can Affect Site Security

Other areas that can affect WP site security include issues such as:

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

There’s No Reason Not To Use WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is a secure web platform. As long as you commit to implementing basic web security measures (which all website owners should do, regardless of their chosen web platform) and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) regularly up-to-date, there’s no reason not to use WordPress.

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

A compromised web site presents malicious users with a valuable resource to launch distributed attacks, spread malware and use your website to defraud innocent people. Blog Defender Security Plugin for WordPress Websites & Blogs makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots. Go here to learn more:

• How To Prevent Bots & Hackers From Attacking Your Site With Blog Defender Security Plugin For WordPress Websites & Blogs

If you are currently using an outdated version of WordPress remember to make a backup before updating your software to protect your site from the latest security risks. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore everything to its previous state.

If you don’t want to back up your data manually, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Backup, Clone & Protect Your WP Websites With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

Article References

The above statistics 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, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about the security benefits of using WordPress please click on links to visit other articles published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new content is published.

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