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

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

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

In March 2014, technology sites like Cnet.com reported 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: Blog Defender)

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 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 happen on a global scale, it’s natural for people to start questioning just how safe and secure WordPress is as a software for building and running their sites.

WordPress is the world’s most used content management system which makes it a frequent target for hacking. But do you really 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 use WordPress if you are concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with some facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is massive, and it’s only going to get worse.

You can safely 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 a matter of when before a malicious user tries to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

How Secure Is “Open Source” Software?

Many people argue that WordPress cannot be a secure platform for building and running a business online because it is a freely available open source application.

Open source CMS software like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone can access the entire software code.

The argument against using WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can study the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily download the code and study all of it in detail, looking for vulnerabilities in the code that could be exploited …

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but when before someone will attempt to hack your website … WordPress or no WordPress!)

While it’s true that WordPress is a free application and hackers can easily go through the code looking for vulnerabilities or weaknesses (hackers can do the same with any software program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open platform actually makes it a lot more secure in many ways.

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

(With WordPress, the core application is built, maintained and updated by a large community of developers worldwide. Image source: WordPress.org)

WordPress evolves because of the effort of a huge community working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. It benefits from hundreds of web developers, designers and users who, at any one time, are focused on improving the code and making WordPress safer for every user …

(WordPress is built and maintained by a global community of experienced web developers. Source: make.wordpress.org)

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

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

The WordPress community support system is solid and formidable and anybody can contribute to improving the platform.

For example:

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

This is one of the reasons why WordPress is constantly releasing new version updates, and why you continually need to keep your sites and blogs updated and maintained …

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

WordPress Vs Proprietary Platforms

Contrast what we have just discussed above with proprietary platforms where often the responsibility for maintaining software security, fixing bugs, etc. falls to a smaller team of developers with limited resources and you will quickly understand the security benefits of using WordPress to power your websites and blogs on a secure platform.

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

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

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

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

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

Other research indicates that, because WordPress is easy to use and update, when sites using different CMS platforms were tested for security exploits, WordPress sites had a significant degree of less exposure to risk …

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

WordPress Should Not Be Blamed

If someone compromises the security of your WordPress site, don’t be quick to blame WordPress.

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

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

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

Of immediate concern for WordPress users, is the fact that many security problems seem to be related to website owners running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

(Many WordPress sites are running on outdated versions. Screenshot: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only between 20% – 35% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are actually found in the WordPress CMS core, while 65% – 75% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions created by 3rd-party developers …

(WP Security Issues. Screenshot image: WebDesign.org)

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

WordPress … Good Enough For Banks To Use!

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

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 around the world, including banks, leading brands and e-commerce sites choose WordPress to build their web presence, not just bloggers.

Other Issues That Can Affect Security

Other areas that can affect WP blog security include:

• No platform is safe from hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to using 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 strong password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. Security systems need regular monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Webhosting setup. For example, sites on shared webhosting accounts are only as secure as the least secure site on the hosting grid, so if another user has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then every site on that shared server can potentially become vulnerable to hacking also.

There Is No Reason To Avoid Choosing WordPress

As this article has hopefully shown, 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 web security measures and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) regularly updated, there’s 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:  WordPress Brute-Force Attack Prevention Measures

A compromised website presents hackers with a valuable platform to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and use your website to defraud online users. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots. Learn more about it here:

• How To Make Your WordPress Blog Invisible To Hackers With Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin

If you are using older versions of WordPress make sure to back up everything before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore things back to their former state.

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

References Used In This Article

The above facts 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 web site and how WordPress can help you expand your business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit other articles published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new content is published.

***