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

These attacks were caused by computers infected with viruses and programmed to attack other vulnerable installations (called “botnets”).

(Powering millions of sites worldwide makes WordPress a target for hacking attacks)

On March 11, 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com began reporting that 162,000 WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.

(Over 160,000 WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 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 WordPress sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

Whenever brute force attacks on WordPress sites receive attention worldwide, it’s natural for website owners to start questioning just how safe and secure WordPress is as a platform for building and running websites.

Being the world’s most popular content management system makes WordPress an obvious target for hacking attempts. But do you need to be concerned about WordPress as being a secure platform for building your business website?

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

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with some facts …

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

The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and things are only going to get worse.

It’s safe to assume that if you haven’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 you use!

Since it’s no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website will be targeted by malicious hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

How Secure Is “Open Source” Software?

Some people often argue that WordPress is not a safe platform for building and running a business online because it’s a freely available open source software.

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, then, goes something like this: If anyone can examine the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily obtain the code and study it, searching for security weaknesses in the code that they could exploit …

(It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when before someone attempts to hack your website … WordPress or no WordPress!)

While it’s true that WordPress is free to download and hackers can easily access it and study the code searching for security vulnerabilities or weaknesses (hackers can do the same with any software), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source platform actually makes it a lot more secure in many ways.

This is because WordPress is supported by an open volunteer community consisting of thousands of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help to improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, an open community of hundreds of web developers is responsible for keeping the software platform up-to-date. Screenshot source: WordPress.org)

WordPress evolves through the effort of thousands of committed volunteers working around the clock to fix issues. It benefits from thousands of individuals who, at any one time, are focused on improving the code, fixing bugs and making WordPress safer for every user …

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

The moment any security weaknesses are discovered by developers or users, the WordPress core developers are then notified …

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

The WordPress community support system is very responsive and anyone can help contribute to the process of getting vulnerabilities plugged.

For example:

• If you notice bugs and security vulnerabilities, you can report these by sending an email to security@wordpress.org.
• If you find any issues in a WP plugin, you can report these by notifying plugins@wordpress.org.

This is the reason why the WordPress community releases new security updates on a regular basis, and why you continually need to keep your site up-to-date …

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

WordPress Vs Proprietary CMS Applications

Contrast what we have just discussed above with proprietary CMS platforms where often the responsibility for improving software security, fixing bugs, etc. falls to a smaller team of developers with limited resources and you will quickly understand the value of using WordPress to run your business web presence on a secure platform.

The WordPress CMS is free to download, modify and use, 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 software that is 100% free to download, use and modify as they wish?

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms include WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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

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

(WordPress experiences fewer security vulnerabilities than other CMS platforms. Image: National Vulnerability Database)

Other research indicates that, because WordPress is easy to use and update, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security issues, WordPress sites had fewer exposure to risk …

(WordPress has significantly less exposure to risk than other CMS applications. Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)

WordPress Is Not At Fault

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

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“, most website owners have no idea about the threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or deal with compromised web security.

In fact, 63% of webmasters surveyed in this report didn’t know how their websites were compromised by hackers after an attack …

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

Of more immediate concern for WordPress users, however, is the fact that most security-related issues result from users running WordPress on outdated versions of the software …

(Many security issues come from sites running an outdated WordPress version. Image source: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only around between 20% – 35% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are actually found in the WordPress CMS core, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions created by third-party developers …

(WordPress Security Issues. Screenshot: WebDesign.org)

Like all robust software applications, WordPress is regularly updated to address new security risks that can arise. Improving software security is an ongoing concern, and to that end, you should always keep up to date with the latest version of WordPress.

WordPress … Secure Enough For Banks To Use!

The amount of misinformation online about WordPress security has even led Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, to chime in and reply to posts online.

In a post entitled “A Bank Website on WordPress” posted 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 around the world, including banks, leading brands and e-commerce sites choose WordPress to build their presence online, not just bloggers.

Other Issues That Can Affect Website Security

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

• No platform is protected from hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to outdated software.
• The biggest weakness of all content management systems seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore good password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security systems need constant monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Server setup. For example, websites on shared webhosting servers are only as safe as the least secure website on the hosting grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then all sites on your server are potentially vulnerable.

There’s No Reason To Avoid Using WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, WordPress is a secure web platform. As long as you commit to implementing basic security measures and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) updated, there is really no reason why you should not choose 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

An unsecured website provides malicious users with a platform to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and use your site to steal information from online users. Blog Defender Security Plugin for WordPress Websites makes your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers. Learn more about this plugin here:

• Blog Defender Review

If you are using outdated versions of WordPress make sure you back up your WordPress site files and data before updating your software to protect your site from the latest security risks. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore.

If you don’t want to back up your files manually, there are a number of free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Backup, Copy And Keep Your WP Websites Protected With Backup Creator WP Plugin

References Used In This Article

For more information on the above, refer to the sites 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 website and how WordPress can help you expand your business online. To learn more about the security benefits of using WordPress please see other articles published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles or tutorials are published.

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