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

These attacks were caused by botnets (computers infected with viruses and programmed to attack other installations with security vulnerabilities).

(WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS making it a natural target for malicious attempts by hackers)

In March 2014, many leading technology sites reported that 162,000 WordPress websites had been hacked.

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

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

When worldwide brute force attacks happen on WordPress sites, it’s natural for people to ask just how safe and secure WordPress is as a software for running an online presence.

WordPress is the world’s most used CMS which makes it a frequent target for hacking attacks. But do you 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 have any concerns about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at facts …

Thousands of websites and blogs are hacked 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 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 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?

”Isn’t Open Source Software Extremely Vulnerable?”

Many people will often try and argue that WordPress is not a safe platform for running a website or blog because it is a freely available open source program.

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

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

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

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

The reason for this is that WordPress has the support of a global volunteer community comprised of hundreds of software programmers, plugin developers and theme designers who are constantly working to help improve the software and make WordPress more secure …

(With WordPress, a huge community of thousands of web developers around the world is responsible for keeping the platform updated. Screenshot image: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress continually evolves through the effort of a huge volunteer community working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. Everyone benefits from hundreds of minds who, at any one time, are focused on improving the code, identifying and fixing security issues and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(WordPress is built by an open community of volunteer web developers. Source: make.wordpress.org)

The moment that any security weakness is discovered by developers or users, these are logged in user forums and addressed by the WordPress developers …

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

The WordPress community support system is very responsive and anyone can contribute to the improvement of the software.

For example:

• If you discover bugs and a security weakness, you can report these by emailing security@wordpress.org.
• If you find any issues in a WP plugin, you can report these by emailing plugins@wordpress.org.

This is why WordPress releases new security updates so often, and why you need to keep your site regularly up-to-date …

(WordPress continually releases new version 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 make the platform more secure. By contrast, a proprietary or “closed-source” software application is typically 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, use and modify, and thousands of volunteers and expert developers are continually working to improve the platform. Can a proprietary CMS company afford to employ as many developers and programmers and still deliver you software that is 100% free to download, use and modify as you wish?

WordPress Vs Other Open Source CMS Platforms

(CMS Platforms)

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

For example, the chart below shows how many security vulnerabilities were discovered in popular open source platforms during a certain period …

(WordPress experiences less security vulnerabilities than other CMS platforms. Screenshot: National Vulnerability Database)

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

(WordPress users are not as exposed to security threats as other CMS platform users. Source: BlogDefender.com)

Don’t Blame The WordPress CMS

Whenever WordPress sites are attacked en masse, you shouldn’t be too quick to blame WordPress.

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” published by security vendor Commtouch and StopBadware, a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises, a large number of webmasters have no idea about the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to secure a website, or how to deal with compromised web security.

In fact, over sixty percent of webmasters surveyed in this report didn’t even know how their websites had been compromised by hackers after an attack …

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

Of more immediate concern for WordPress users, however, is the fact that most security issues seem to be related to website owners simply not upgrading their WordPress software to a newer version …

(Many WordPress users have not updated their software. Image source: Sucuri.net)

When WordPress security issues were examined in more detail, it was found that only a small percentage of vulnerabilities discovered in 3rd-party code are found in the WordPress CMS core, while 65% – 85% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

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

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

WordPress Is Used By Many Security-Conscious Businesses!

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

In a blog 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 around the world choose WordPress to build their websites, including banks, leading brands, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Factors That Can Affect Blog Security

Other factors that can affect WP blog security include things like:

• No platform is protected 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 main vulnerability in all CMS platforms seems to be the users themselves. An example of this is users ignoring good password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security systems need to be constantly monitored, tested, updated and improved.
• Webhosting setup. For example, websites on shared hosting are only as safe as the least safe site on the grid, so if another user on your shared server gets their site broken into, then all sites on that server become vulnerable to being hacked as well.

There Is No Reason Why You Shouldn’t Use WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is a secure web platform. As long as you commit to implementing basic web security measures and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) updated, there is no reason to avoid choosing WordPress to drive your web site or blog.

WordPress Security – Tips

To learn about ways to protect your WordPress site from brute force attacks see this article:  WordPress Brute Force Attack Prevention Measures

A vulnerable blog presents malicious users with a platform to launch denial of service attacks, spread malware and engage in information theft. Blog Defender makes your WordPress site invisible to botnets and hackers. Learn more about it here:

• How To Hide Your WordPress Web Site From Bots & Hackers

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

If you don’t want to back up your data manually, there are many WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your backup process here: Back Up, Clone And Keep Your WP Websites And Blogs Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

Article References

The above facts were referenced from various 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 issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about using the WordPress platform please click on links to visit other articles published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications when new articles are published.

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