In early 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to a global-scale brute-force attack.

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

(Powering millions of websites around the world makes WordPress an obvious target for attacks by hackers)

In March 2014, many technology sites began reporting that over 160,000+ legitimate WordPress-powered web sites had been hacked.

(160,000+ WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in March 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 reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WP web sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyber-attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When attacks on WordPress sites seem to increase, it’s natural for people to ask if WordPress really is a safe software for building and running their sites.

WordPress is frequently the target of attacks by 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 definitely choose WordPress if you have any concerns about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with the facts …

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

The sheer number of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and it’s only going to get worse.

It’s safe to 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 hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

”Isn’t Open Source Software Extremely Vulnerable?”

Some people will often try and argue that WordPress is not a safe platform for building and running websites or blogs because its open source code means that anyone can view how the program works.

Open-source CMS programs like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are free to use and anyone has access to the software code.

The argument, then, goes something like this: If anyone can study the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily obtain all of the code and study every single line in great detail, looking for security weaknesses in the code that they could exploit …

(It’s no longer a matter of if, but when before your website will be targeted by malicious hackers … WordPress or no WordPress!)

While it’s true that WordPress is free and hackers can easily access it and study the code looking for holes and vulnerabilities they can exploit (hackers can do the same with any software), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source software platform actually makes it more secure in many ways.

This is because WordPress has the support of a global volunteer community comprised of hundreds of people such as software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who constantly help to improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, a large volunteer community of developers is responsible for keeping the core application up-to-date. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress evolves because of the effort of hundreds of committed volunteers working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. Everyone benefits from thousands of web developers, designers and users who, at any one time, are focused on improving the application, identifying and fixing security vulnerabilities and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(WordPress is built by a global community of volunteer members. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

As soon as a security weakness is identified by developers or users, these are then reported in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core development team …

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

The WordPress community support system is very responsive and anyone can help contribute to securing the platform.

For example:

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

This is the reason why the core development team is constantly releasing new version updates, and why you continually need to keep your site updated and maintained …

(WordPress frequently releases new updates to plug any security exploits found)

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary CMS Platforms

We’ve just seen that one of the security advantages of using an open source platform like WordPress is that users benefit from a large community of developers who continually contribute to improve platform security. By contrast, a proprietary or “closed-source” CMS platform would normally be built by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, software maintenance, bug fixes and software fixes.

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

WordPress 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, here is one study showing the number of security vulnerabilities discovered in each of these open source platforms during a certain period …

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

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

(WordPress users are less exposed to threats than other CMS platform users. Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame WordPress When Things Go Wrong

If someone breaks into your WordPress site, don’t be too quick to blame WordPress.

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” which is published by a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises called StopBadware and security vendor Commtouch, many webmasters are not fully aware of 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 websites were hacked after an attack …

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

Of immediate concern, however, is the fact that many security-related issues result from website owners running WordPress on outdated versions of the software …

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

When WordPress security issues were looked at in more detail, it was found that only a small percentage of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are actually found in the WordPress core software, while 70% – 80% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally …

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

Like many modern software applications, WordPress is regularly updated in order to deal with new security threats that can arise. Improving security is always a concern, and to that end, you should always keep up to date with the latest version of WordPress.

WordPress Is Secure – Just Ask Any Bank Using It!

The amount of misinformation about WordPress security has even led 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 …

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 use WordPress to build their websites, including banks, large organizations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors That Can Affect Site Security

Other research on issues that affect WordPress security point to things like:

• 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 using software that is out of date.
• The biggest security vulnerability in all CMS platforms seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore good password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security processes need to be frequently monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Server setup. For example, websites on shared hosting accounts are only as safe as the least secure website on the grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site hacked into, then all sites on your server become vulnerable.

There’s No Reason To Avoid Choosing WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is as secure as most other leading web platforms being used by businesses of all sizes to build their presence online. As long as you commit to implementing basic web security measures and keep your WordPress software (and plugins, themes, etc.) updated, there is really no reason why you should not use WordPress to drive your website or blog.

WordPress Security – Tips

To learn about ways to protect your WordPress site from brute-force attacks see this article:  10 Security Measures That Can Prevent Brute-Force Attacks On Your WordPress Site Or Blog

A vulnerable site offers hackers with a valuable resource to launch distributed attacks, spread malware and use your site to defraud others. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets. Go here to learn more:

• How To Prevent Malicious Cyber Attacks On Your WordPress Site By Hackers With Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin

If you are currently using an older version of WordPress make sure you back up your website fully before updating your software to protect your site from the latest security risks. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore everything 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 backup process here: Back Up, Duplicate & Protect Your WP Web Site With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

References

The above statistics 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, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better business results online. To learn more about using the WordPress platform please click on links to visit other posts we have published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles are published.

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