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

These attacks were caused by computers infected with malware and programmed to attack other vulnerable computers (botnets).

(WordPress powers millions of websites and blogs around the world, making it a frequent target for hacking attacks)

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 early 2014. Image source: BlogDefender.com)

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 described by security firm Sucuri, hackers had leveraged a well-known flaw to attack unsuspecting WordPress websites and direct a distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS) towards another popular website.

When brute force attacks on WordPress sites happen on such a wide scale, it’s natural for people to start asking if WordPress really is a secure application for building and running their sites.

Powering millions of websites worldwide makes WordPress a target for hacking attacks. But should you be concerned about WordPress as being 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 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 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 hackers, are there any advantages that WordPress can offer you in terms of security?

”How Can Open Source Applications Keep Hackers Away?”

Many people will often try to argue that WordPress cannot be a secure platform for running websites because it is a freely available open source software program.

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

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

(It’s not a matter of if, but when before someone attempts to hack your website … 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 or vulnerabilities (hackers can do the same with any program), the fact that WordPress is a free, open-source platform actually makes it a whole lot more secure in several ways.

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

(A volunteer community of web developers build, maintain and update. Image source: make.wordpress.org)

WordPress evolves largely through the effort of thousands of committed individuals working around the clock to fix any issues detected by users. It benefits from hundreds of individuals committed to improving the software, identifying and fixing security vulnerabilities and making the WordPress platform safer for every user …

(The WordPress core software is built and maintained by an open community of volunteer web developers. Screenshot source: WordPress.org)

The moment any security weaknesses are discovered by developers or users, these are immediately noted in user forums and addressed by the WordPress developers …

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

The WordPress community support system, therefore, is solid and formidable and anyone can help contribute to the process of addressing vulnerabilities.

For example:

• If you come across bugs or security exploits, 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 emailing plugins@wordpress.org.

This is one of the reasons why WordPress is constantly releasing new security updates, and why you need to keep your sites and blogs regularly updated …

(WordPress continually releases new updates to plug security holes)

WordPress CMS Vs Proprietary Platforms

Contrast what we have just discussed above with proprietary platforms where often a 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 security benefits of using WordPress to run your business presence online on a secure platform.

The WordPress CMS is free to download, modify and use, and hundreds of volunteers and expert developers work on improving the technology. 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 CMS Applications

(CMS Platforms include WordPress, Joomla and Drupal)

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

For example, the chart below shows how many security vulnerabilities were discovered in each of these platforms during a certain period …

(WordPress has less security vulnerabilities than other leading CMS applications. Screenshot image: National Vulnerability Database)

Other studies show that, because WordPress is easy to use and to update, when sites across different CMS platforms were tested for security exploits, sites run on WordPress had less exposure to risk …

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

Don’t Blame WordPress

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

According to a nonprofit organization that helps webmasters identify, remediate and prevent website compromises called StopBadware and security vendor Commtouch in a published report entitled “Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective“, a large number of webmasters are not fully aware of the security threats their websites are exposed to, how to properly secure a website, or deal with web security compromises.

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

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

Of immediate concern for WordPress users, is the fact that many security problems seem to be related to users simply not updating their CMS software to the latest version …

(Many WordPress sites use outdated versions. Screenshot: 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 actually found in the WordPress core software, while 65% – 75% percent of all security issues are found in plug-ins and extensions …

(WordPress Security Issues. Source: WebDesign.org)

Like many web platforms, 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 your WordPress software, plugins, and themes updated to the latest version.

WordPress … Good Enough For Banks To Use!

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

In an article entitled “A Bank Website on WordPress” posted 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, including banks, global corporations and e-commerce sites choose WordPress to build their presence online, not just bloggers.

Other Issues That Can Affect Security

Other areas that can affect site security include:

• 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 main security threat of all web platforms seems to be the users themselves. For example, many users ignore strong password security recommendations.
• Lack of constant monitoring. Security systems need frequent monitoring, testing, updating and improvement.
• Hosting server setup. For example, sites on shared webhosting are only as secure as the least secure site on the grid, so if someone else has a weak FTP password on your shared server, then all sites on your server are potentially vulnerable to being hacked as well.

There’s No Reason Not To Use WordPress

As you can see, WordPress is quite secure. As long as you remember to implement basic web security measures (which all website owners should do) and keep your WordPress software (and themes, plugins, etc.) regularly up-to-date, there is no reason not to choose WordPress to run 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:  Preventing WordPress Brute Force Attacks

An unsecured website presents hackers with a platform for distributed attacks, spreading malware and engaging in information theft. Blog Defender Security Plugin makes your WordPress site invisible to botnets and hackers. Learn more about this plugin here:

• Prevent Malicious Intrusions On Your WP Websites By Botnets & Hackers With Blog Defender Security Plugin

If you are currently using an outdated version of WordPress make sure to make a backup before updating your software to benefit from the latest security updates. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of free and paid plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here: Backup, Duplicate & Keep Your WP Websites Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

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, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you improve your business 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 when new content is published.

***