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

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

(Being the world’s most popular content management system makes WordPress an obvious target for hacking)

On March 11, 2014, technology sites reported that over 162,000 WordPress-powered websites had been hacked.

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in March 2014. Image source: 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)

According to security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When worldwide brute force attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for website owners to start questioning just how secure the WordPress platform is for building and running an online presence.

Powering millions of sites around the world makes WordPress an obvious target for hackers. But should you 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 use WordPress if you have any concerns about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with the facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is rising, and it’s getting worse.

You can safely assume that if your website or blog hasn’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 your website will be targeted by malicious hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

Is An “Open Source” Software Secure?

Some people will often try to argue that WordPress is not a safe platform for running a business online because it is “open source” and freely available software program.

Open source CMS programs like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone has access to the entire underlying 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 also easily obtain all of the code and study all of it in detail, searching for vulnerabilities that can be exploited …

(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 and hackers can easily access it and study the code searching for security vulnerabilities or weaknesses (hackers can do the same with any software program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open software platform actually makes it a lot more secure in several ways.

The reason for this is that WordPress has the support of a global volunteer community that consists of thousands of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help improve the platform and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, a large community of thousands of web developers around the world is responsible for keeping the core application code maintained and updated. Screenshot source: WordPress.org)

WordPress continually evolves because of the effort of a huge community working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. Everyone benefits from thousands of individuals who, at any one time, are focused on improving the software and making it safer for every user …

(WordPress is built and maintained by a large community of contributors. Screenshot: make.wordpress.org)

As soon as a security problem is discovered by developers or users, the WordPress development team are then notified …

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

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

For example:

• If you find bugs or security vulnerabilities, you can report these by emailing security@wordpress.org.
• If you find issues in a WP plugin, you can report these by emailing 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 site updated and maintained …

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

WordPress Vs Proprietary 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 make the software more secure. By contrast, proprietary or “closed-source” CMS platforms are normally developed by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, maintenance services, bug fixes and software fixes.

WordPress is 100% free to download, modify and use, and hundreds of volunteers and expert developers are continually working to improve the software. Can a proprietary technology company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver users a completely free CMS platform that they can download, use and modify as they wish?

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source CMS Applications

(CMS Platforms - WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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

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

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

Other studies show that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and keep up-to-date, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security issues, WordPress sites had a significant degree of less exposure to risk …

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

WordPress Is Not At Fault

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

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

In fact, over 60% of webmasters surveyed in this report didn’t even know how their websites were compromised after an attack …

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

Of immediate concern is the fact that most security-related issues result from site owners running WordPress on outdated versions of the software …

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

When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only around between 20% – 30% percent 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: WebDesign.org)

Like many software platforms, WordPress is regularly updated to deal with new security issues that may arise. Improving software 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 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 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 choose WordPress to build their web presence, including banks, global corporations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors Affecting WP Blog Security

Other studies on issues that affect WordPress security point to things such as:

• No platform is immune to hackers. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to using outdated software.
• The biggest vulnerability in all web platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring strong password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. All security systems need to be regularly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Server setup. For example, websites on shared webhosting are only as secure as the least safe site on the grid, so if another user has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then all sites on that server can potentially become vulnerable to hacking also.

There Is No Reason Not To Use WordPress

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

WordPress Security – Tips

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

A vulnerable web site presents hackers with a platform for launching distributed attacks, spreading malware and as a source of information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets. Go here to learn more:

• Protect Your WordPress Site From Bots & Hackers With Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin

If you are using older WordPress versions make sure you back up your website fully before updating your software to protect your site from the latest security threats. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Back Up, Duplicate & Protect Your WordPress Web Site With Backup Creator WP Plugin

Article References

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 get better results online. To learn more about using WordPress please see our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles are published.

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