In 2013 a worldwide brute force attack hit WordPress installations on almost every host server in existence.

These attacks were caused by infected computer networks programmed to attack other installations, also commonly known as “botnets”.

(WordPress often comes under attack by hackers)

On March 11, 2014, technology sites began reporting that 162,000 legitimate WordPress web sites had been hacked.

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

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 WP web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

Whenever brute force attacks on WordPress sites gain worldwide attention, it’s natural for website owners to question if WordPress really is a safe application for building and running an online presence.

WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS which makes it a target for attempted hacker attacks. But should you really 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 choose WordPress if you are at all 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 scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and the situation is 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 your website has been built with!

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

”How Can Open Source Programs Remain Protected From Hacking?”

Some people will often try to argue that WordPress is not a secure platform for building and running websites and blogs because it is a freely available open source program.

Open-source CMS programs like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone can access 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 also easily get hold of all of the code and go through it in great detail, searching for weaknesses and vulnerabilities that could be exploited …

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

While it’s true that WordPress is free and hackers can easily go through the code looking for security 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 lot more secure in a number of ways.

This is because WordPress is supported by a global community of hundreds of people such as software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help improve the program and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, the platform is built, maintained and updated by a huge community of hundreds of web developers worldwide. Screenshot image: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress evolves because of the effort of a huge volunteer community working around the clock to fix issues. Everyone benefits from thousands of individuals committed to improving the code and making it safer for every user …

(WordPress is built and maintained by a large community of contributors. Image source: WordPress.org)

As soon as security holes are discovered by developers or users, these are then reported in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core developers …

(WordPress is continually being improved by a huge community community of users and developers. Screenshot image: make.wordpress.org)

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is solid and formidable and anybody can help contribute to securing the software.

For example:

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

This is one of the reasons why the WordPress community releases new updates on a regular basis, and why you need to keep your WordPress sites and blogs frequently updated …

(WordPress frequently releases new updates to plug security weaknesses)

WordPress Vs Proprietary Applications

Contrast what we have just discussed above with proprietary CMS technologies where often a much smaller team with limited time and resources is responsible for monitoring and maintaining software security, fixing bugs, etc., and you will very quickly realize the value and advantages of using WordPress to power your business presence online on a secure platform.

The WordPress CMS is 100% free to download, modify and use, and thousands of volunteers and expert developers work on improving the platform. Can a proprietary technology company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver you a completely free application that you can download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

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

For example, the chart below shows how many security vulnerabilities were discovered in each of these open source platforms during a certain period …

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

Other studies also show that, because WordPress is easy to use and to keep updated, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security issues, sites built with WordPress had fewer exposure to risk …

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

Don’t Blame The Platform

When WordPress sites are attacked en masse, users shouldn’t be too quick to place the blame on the WordPress CMS platform.

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” published by security vendor Commtouch and StopBadware, a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises, many webmasters 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, over 60% of webmasters surveyed in this report didn’t know how their sites were compromised by hackers after an attack …

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

Of more immediate concern is the fact that many security issues seem to be related to website owners not upgrading their CMS software to the latest version …

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

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only around between 20% – 30% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are actually found in the WordPress CMS core, while 65% – 80% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions created by third-party developers …

(WP Security Issues. Source: WebDesign.org)

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

WordPress Is Secure – Just Ask Any Bank That Uses It!

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

Other Issues Affecting WordPress Blog Security

Other factors that can affect website security include:

• No platform is completely immune to hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to software that is out of date.
• The biggest risk in all web platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring good password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security processes need to be regularly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Hosting setup. For example, websites on shared hosting are only as secure as the least secure website on the hosting grid, so if someone else on your shared server gets their site broken into, then every site on your shared server can potentially become vulnerable to being hacked also.

There’s No Reason Not To Choose WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is as secure as most other leading web platforms being used by businesses to build their presence online. As long as you continue to implement basic website security measures (which all website owners should do, regardless of their chosen web platform) and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) updated, there is really no reason why you shouldn’t choose WordPress.

WordPress Security – Useful Tips

To learn about ways to protect your WordPress site from brute-force attacks see this article:  Ten Security Measures That Can Help To Prevent Brute Force Attacks On Your WordPress Site Or Blog

A compromised blog presents malicious users with a resource to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and use your website to defraud online users. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks. Learn more about it here:

• How To Hide Your WP Web Sites From Hackers & Bots

If you are using outdated versions of WordPress make sure you back up your site before updating your software to protect your site from the latest security threats. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore your web site or blog to its former settings.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Back Up, Clone & Keep Your WordPress Web Site Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

References Used In This Article

The facts quoted above 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, the above post has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit other posts published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles or tutorials are published.

***