In early 2013 a global brute force attack hit WordPress installations across almost every host server in existence around the world.

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

(WordPress is the world’s most used CMS making it a natural target for hackers)

In March 2014, technology sites began reporting that over 162,000 WordPress web sites had been hacked.

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

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

Whenever brute-force attacks on WordPress sites increase in frequency, it’s natural for people to question if WordPress really is a secure platform for building and running their sites.

WordPress is often the target of attacks by hackers. But do you really 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 use WordPress if you are at all concerned about website security.

WordPress Security Explained

Let’s start by looking at some facts …

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

The scale of attacks on websites and blogs worldwide is rising, and things are 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 you use!

Since it’s no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when before your website is targeted by malicious hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

Is An “Open Source” Software Really Safe?

Many people will often try to argue that WordPress should not be used for building and running a business online because it’s a freely available open source program.

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

The argument against WordPress, then, goes something like this: If anyone can access the Open Source code for WordPress, then hackers can easily get hold of the code and study every line in detail, searching for security weaknesses in the code 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 weaknesses and vulnerabilities (hackers can do the same with any software), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source application actually makes it a whole lot more secure in several ways.

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

(A huge community build, maintain and update. Source: WordPress.org)

WordPress evolves largely through the effort of a huge community working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. It benefits from thousands of individuals who are dedicated to improving the application and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(WordPress is built by an open community of users. Image source: WordPress.org)

As soon as security weaknesses are discovered by developers or users, these are normally logged in user forums and addressed by the WordPress core developers …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is quite formidable and anybody can contribute to the process of addressing security issues.

For example:

• If you come across bugs and security vulnerabilities, you can report these by emailing security@wordpress.org.
• If you find any issues in a plugin, you can report these by emailing plugins@wordpress.org.

This is one of the reasons why the WordPress team releases new security updates on a regular basis, and why you continually need to keep your site frequently up-to-date …

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

WordPress Vs Proprietary 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 is normally developed by a small team of developers with limited time and resources to provide continuous security monitoring, software maintenance, bug fixes and updates.

WordPress is 100% free to download, modify and use, and hundreds 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 Platforms

(CMS Platforms - WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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 like Drupal and Joomla.

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

(WordPress has fewer security vulnerabilities than other leading CMS platforms. Source: National Vulnerability Database)

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

(WordPress users are less exposed to security exploits than other CMS platform users. Image source: BlogDefender.com)

WordPress Should Not Be Blamed

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

According to a report called “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective,” which is published by security organizations Commtouch and StopBadware, many website owners 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 60% of webmasters surveyed in this report didn’t even know how their websites had been compromised by hackers after an attack …

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

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

(Many WordPress sites use outdated versions. Image 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 found in the WordPress core software, while 70% – 85% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

(WP Security Issues. Screenshot: WebDesign.org)

Like many software applications, WordPress is updated regularly in order to deal with new security risks that may arise. Improving software security is an ongoing 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 how secure WordPress is has even led the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, to chime into the online debate.

In a blog post 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 around the world choose WordPress to build their web presence, including banks, large organizations, and e-commerce sites, not just bloggers.

Other Issues That Can Affect WordPress Blog Security

Other areas that can affect site security include issues such as:

• No platform is immune to hacking. As many as 90% of all websites across all platforms are vulnerable to attack, mostly due to using software that is out of date.
• The biggest security threat in all content management systems seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore good password security practices.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security systems require regular monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Server setup. For example, websites on shared webhosting are only as safe as the least safe website on the grid, so if someone else has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then all sites on your server can potentially become vulnerable.

There’s No Reason Why You Should Not Use WordPress

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

WordPress Security – Useful Tips

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

An unsecured website provides hackers with a resource for distributed attacks, spreading malware and as a source of information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers. Go here to learn more:

• Blog Defender Security Plugin – How To Make Your Site Unseen By Hackers

If you are using older versions of WordPress remember to back up everything before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore everything to its former state.

If you don’t want to back up your files manually, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here: Back Up, Duplicate And Keep Your WordPress Web Sites Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

References

The above statistics were sourced from the following sites:

• 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 web site and how WordPress can help you grow your business online. To learn more about the security benefits of using WordPress please see other posts published on this site or subscribe to receive updates and notifications whenever new content is published.

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