In early 2013 a worldwide brute force attack began hitting WordPress installations on almost every host server in existence around the world.

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

(Being the world’s most used content management system makes WordPress a target for attempted attacks by hackers)

On March 11, 2014, many leading technology sites began reporting that 160,000+ legitimate WordPress-powered sites had been hacked.

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

As reported by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress sites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When global attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for website owners to question if WordPress really is a safe software for running an online presence.

WordPress is often the target of malicious attacks by hackers, due to its global popularity. But do you really need to be concerned about WordPress as a secure web platform?

In this article, you will learn some of the main reasons why you should definitely choose WordPress if you are at all concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start with the facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs around the world is rising, and this is getting worse.

You can safely assume that if your website or blog hasn’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 not a matter of if, but when before a malicious user attempts to hack your website, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

Is An “Open Source” Software Safe?

Some people will often try to argue that WordPress should not be used for building and running a web presence because its open source code means that anyone can view how the software application works.

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

The argument against WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can study the Open Source software code for WordPress, then hackers can easily get hold of all of the code and go through every single line in detail, looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities that could be exploited …

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

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

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

(With WordPress, the platform is built, maintained and updated by an open community of thousands of developers around the world. Screenshot image: WordPress.org)

WordPress evolves because of the effort of thousands of committed individuals working around the clock to fix issues. It benefits from thousands of web developers, designers and users who, at any one time, are focused on improving the software, identifying and fixing security holes and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(WordPress is built by a large community of volunteer web developers. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

As soon as any security weaknesses are identified by developers or users, these are immediately logged in user forums and addressed by the WordPress developers …

(WordPress is continually being improved upon by an open community of web developers and users. Screenshot: WordPress.org)

The WordPress community support system is solid and formidable and anybody can help contribute to the process of fixing security issues.

For example:

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

This is why the WordPress team releases new updates regularly, and why you continually need to keep your WordPress site updated …

(WordPress frequently releases new version updates to address security weaknesses)

WordPress Vs Proprietary CMS Applications

Contrast what we have just discussed above with proprietary platforms where often a much smaller team with limited time and resources is responsible for developing, monitoring and improving software security, fixing bugs, etc., and you will very quickly understand 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 technology. Can a proprietary CMS company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver you a free CMS platform that you can download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress Vs Other Open Source Platforms

(CMS Platforms - WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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

For example, the chart below shows the number of security vulnerabilities discovered in popular open source CMS platforms …

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

Other studies indicate that, because WordPress is quite easy to use and update, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security vulnerabilities, sites built with WordPress had fewer exposure to risk …

(Blog Defender – CMS Tests. Screenshot: BlogDefender.com)

WordPress Is Not At Fault

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

According to security organizations Commtouch and StopBadware in a published report entitled “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective“, a large number of 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 for the report didn’t even know how their sites were compromised by hackers after an attack …

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

Of immediate concern, however, is the fact that most security issues seem to be related to users running sites with an outdated version of WordPress …

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

When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only around between 20% – 35% percent of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are actually found in the WordPress CMS core, while most security issues are found in plug-ins and developed externally for WordPress …

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

Like all robust 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 software, themes, plugins, etc..

WordPress Is Secure – Even Banks Are Using It!

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

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, including banks, global corporations and e-commerce sites choose WordPress to build their web presence, not just bloggers.

Other Factors That Can Affect Site Security

Other areas that can affect site security include:

• No platform is completely safe from security threats. 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 main security risk of all content management platforms seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore strong password security practices.
• 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 site on the grid, so if someone else on your shared server gets their site broken into, then all sites on your server become vulnerable to being hacked also.

There’s No Reason Why You Should Not Use WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is quite secure. As long as you commit to implementing basic website security measures (which all website owners should do) and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) updated, there’s no reason to avoid choosing WordPress.

WordPress Security – Practical Tips

To learn about ways to protect your WordPress site from brute-force attacks see this article:  Preventing WordPress Brute Force Attacks

An unsecured site provides malicious users with a resource to launch distributed attacks, spread malware and use your site to defraud online users. Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets. Go here to learn more:

• Prevent Bots & Hackers From Attacking Your Blog

If you are using older versions of WordPress remember to back up your WordPress 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 site to its former state.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Back Up, Duplicate And Keep Your WP Sites Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

References Used In This Article

For more information on the above, see the following sources:

• ITProPortal.com
• National Vulnerability Database
• BlogDefender.com
• UpAndUpStudios.com
• StopBadware.org
• Sucuri.net
• WebDesign.org
• Quora.com
• Ma.tt

Hopefully, the above article has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about the security benefits of using WordPress for a business website please see our related posts section or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new articles or tutorials are published.

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