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

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

(WordPress powers millions of sites around the world, making it a target for malicious attacks by hackers)

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

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Screenshot image: 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 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 asking just how safe and secure WordPress is as a software for running a business web presence.

WordPress often is targeted by hackers. But do you need to be concerned about WordPress as a secure platform for building your business website?

In this article, you will learn some of the main reasons why you should definitely consider using WordPress if you have any concerns about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with some facts …

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

The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide 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 only a matter of time … regardless of the web platform you use!

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

Is “Open Source” Software Really Safe?

Many people will often argue that WordPress is not a safe platform for running web sites 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 underlying code.

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

(It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website is targeted by hackers … 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 holes and weaknesses that can be exploited (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 is supported by a large volunteer community consisting of hundreds 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 …

(WordPress is built, maintained and updated by an open community of hundreds of developers worldwide. Source: WordPress.org)

WordPress evolves largely through the effort of a global community working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from thousands of minds who, at any one time, are focused on improving the software, identifying and fixing security issues and making it safer for every user …

(WordPress is built and maintained by a global community of users. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

The moment any security vulnerabilities are identified by developers or users, these are noted in user forums and addressed by the WordPress developers …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is solid and formidable and anybody can help contribute to the process of getting vulnerabilities plugged.

For example:

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

This is the reason why WordPress releases new security updates on a regular basis, and why you need to keep your WordPress site regularly maintained …

(WordPress continually releases new version updates to address security holes)

WordPress Vs Proprietary CMS Platforms

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 improve platform security. 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, maintenance services, bug fixes and updates.

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

WordPress Vs Other Open Source Applications

(CMS Platforms)

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

For example, the chart below shows the number of security vulnerabilities found in popular CMS platforms …

(National Vulnerability Database – Security Vulnerabilities IN CMS Platforms. Image: National Vulnerability Database)

Other studies show 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 …

(WordPress is more secure than other leading CMS platforms. Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame The WordPress CMS

If someone breaks into your WordPress site, don’t be quick to place the blame on the WordPress CMS platform.

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” which is published by security vendor Commtouch and StopBadware, a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises, most 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 sites had been hacked after an attack …

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

Of more immediate concern for WordPress users, is the fact that most security-related problems result from website owners running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

(Many WordPress sites are running on outdated versions. Source: 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 core software, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally for WordPress …

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

Like all robust software applications, WordPress is regularly updated to deal with new security issues that could 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 … Secure Enough For Banks To Use!

The amount of misinformation online about how secure WordPress is has even led Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, to chime into the online discussion.

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

Other Factors Affecting Security

Other studies on issues that affect website security point to areas such as:

• No platform is completely protected 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 threat of all content management platforms seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore good password security practices.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. All security systems need to be constantly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Webhosting server setup. For example, sites on shared webhosting are only as secure as the least secure website on the grid, so if someone else on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then every site on your server is potentially vulnerable.

There’s No Reason Not To Use WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is a secure web platform. As long as you remember to implement basic security measures (which all website owners should do, regardless of their chosen technology platform) and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) regularly updated, there is really 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:  Preventing WordPress From Brute Force Attacks

An unsecured site provides hackers with a resource for launching denial of service attacks, spreading malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers. Go here to learn more:

• Prevent Malicious Intrusions On Your WP Blog By Hackers With Blog Defender Security Plugin

If you are using older WordPress versions remember to back up everything 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 configuration.

If you don’t want to back up your data manually, there are a number of plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Back Up, Duplicate And Protect Your WP Websites And Blogs With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

References Used In This Article

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 problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you grow your business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business website please click on links to visit other posts we have published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new content is published.

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