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

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

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

On March 11, 2014, many leading technology sites reported that 160,000+ legitimate WordPress websites had been hacked.

(Over 160,000 WordPress sites were attacked in a massive DDoS attack in early 2014. Screenshot source: BlogDefender website)

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 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 are reported in the media, it’s natural for people to start asking if WordPress really is a secure platform for running a business web presence.

WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS making it an obvious target for hackers. But do you really need to be concerned about WordPress as a secure platform for building your business web presence?

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 some facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is rising, and things are only going to get worse.

You can safely assume that if your website or blog hasn’t been hacked yet, then it’s only a matter of time before someone does attempt to hack into your site … regardless of the web platform you use!

Since it’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when before a malicious user will attempt to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

”How Can Open Source Software Applications Prevent Hacking?”

Many people argue that WordPress cannot be a secure platform for building and running websites or blogs because its “open source” code is freely available.

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

The argument against WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can study the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily download the code and go through every single line, searching for security weaknesses in the code that can be exploited …

(It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when before a malicious user will try to hack your website … WordPress or no WordPress!)

While it’s true that WordPress is free and hackers can easily go through the code searching for security vulnerabilities and weaknesses they can exploit (hackers can do the same with any software program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source platform actually makes it more secure in several ways.

This is because WordPress has the support of a large community that consists of hundreds of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help improve the platform and make WordPress more secure …

(A large community of web developers around the world is responsible for maintaining and updating WordPress. Screenshot source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress evolves because of the effort of a huge community working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. Everyone benefits from hundreds of web developers, designers and users dedicated to improving the software and making WordPress safer for every user …

(WordPress is built by a global community of users. Screenshot source: make.wordpress.org)

As soon as any security problem is identified by developers or users, the WordPress core development team are then notified …

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

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

For example:

• If you discover bugs and security issues, you can report these by sending an email to security@wordpress.org.
• If you find issues in a WordPress plugin, you can also report these by notifying plugins@wordpress.org.

This is why the WordPress community releases new security updates so often, and why you need to keep your WordPress sites and blogs regularly maintained …

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

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary CMS Platforms

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

The WordPress CMS is 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 you a free application that you can download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress CMS Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

Whilst on the topic of Open Source content management applications, research shows that the WordPress CMS is actually 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 popular platforms during a given period …

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

Other studies also 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, sites run on WordPress had fewer exposure to risk …

(WordPress users are not as exposed to security exploits as other CMS platform users. Screenshot source: BlogDefender.com)

It’s Not WordPress’ Fault

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

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” which is 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 security threats their websites are exposed to, how to properly secure a website, or how to deal with web security compromises.

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

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

Of immediate concern for WordPress users, however, is the fact that many security issues seem to be related to site owners forgetting to update their CMS software to the latest version …

(Many WordPress sites use outdated versions. Source: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only a small percentage of vulnerabilities discovered in third-party code are found in the WordPress core software, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

(WordPress Security Issues. Image source: WebDesign.org)

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

WordPress … Secure Enough For Banks To Use!

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

In a post 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, including banks, large organizations and e-commerce sites choose WordPress to build their presence online, not just bloggers.

Other Factors Affecting Website Security

Other factors that can affect security include:

• No platform is completely safe from hacking. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to being attacked, mostly due to using outdated software.
• The main security weakness of all content management platforms seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore good password security practices.
• Lack of constant system monitoring. All security systems need to be frequently monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Webhosting setup. For example, sites on shared hosting accounts are only as secure as the least safe website on the grid, so if someone else on your shared server gets their site broken into, then all sites on that server become vulnerable to being hacked as well.

There’s No Reason Not To Choose WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is as secure as most of the leading web platforms being used by businesses to build their presence online. 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 shouldn’t 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

A compromised site provides hackers with a resource for distributed attacks, spreading malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and bots. Learn more about it here:

• Prevent Malicious Intrusions On Your WordPress Web Sites By Hackers

If you are currently using an older WordPress version remember to back up your website before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore everything to its previous configuration.

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: Backup, Duplicate And Protect Your WP Website With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

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, this article has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To learn more about the security benefits of using the WordPress web site management platform please click on links to visit other posts published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles are published.

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