WordPress is arguably one of the most popular CMS in the world, with huge extensibility across hundreds of thousands of plug-ins and add-ons. This makes it incredibly easy to add the tools you need to your website, but it also opens the platform itself up to unscrupulous characters who might want to use their fabulous functionality to add in a bot or malware to your shiny new website. WordPress threats and security issues are a huge problem when they happen, and one that users may not consider when they decide to go in this direction.

Feature (and Vulnerability) Rich Platforms

WordPress, like Drupal and Joomla, are built on open-source frameworks within shared developer environments. While this provides an incredibly feature-rich CMS that is highly cost-effective and extensible, it means that there are thousands of developers with intense back-end knowledge of your platform. WordPress maintenance service can be more challenging than a traditional CMS install, simply because of the need to add security features that aren’t included out of the box – and each add-on needs to be vetted by experts and keep up to date at all times to avoid vulnerabilities.

Protect Your Username & Password

Sure, this sounds like a no-brainer, but keeping your password safe and secure is more important than ever, if you’re running a WordPress site. Using ‘admin’ as the username is highly frowned upon – you need to choose something that is going to be tougher to guess or you’ve just cut the time to hack your site in half. Password guessing tools are incredibly sophisticated and can potentially ‘learn’ your password from information you have posted, if you post from within your admin account, so avoid that option as well.

DDoS Attacks

Even when your business is not remotely controversial, you can find yourself the victim of a DDoS attack – a distributed denial-of-service attack – when your website is essentially closed for business to the outside world. Keeping a clean WordPress backup at all times can help you or your service provider do a quick-restore when needed.

Commercial Data Breaches

When you run a small (or large!) WordPress eCommerce site, you need to be constantly aware that you are responsible for keeping your customers safe. When even large companies like Target and Home Depot have been hit with commercial data breaches, how can you be sure that WordPress services are up to date enough to ensure the security of your site? Working with a comprehensive WordPress support system can help you keep your WordPress update schedule up-to-date as well as ferret out any potential security risks and get them resolved – before they become a problem.

SQL Injections and Cross-Site Scripting

IBM found that in 2014, the majority of SQL injection and command-line injection attacks were targeted specifically to WordPress. The first 3 months of 2014 were especially heavy, with a resurgence towards the holiday shopping season starting in October with the main targets being retail trade sites hosted on WordPress. Before you start thinking that these attacks were all international, you should know that more than half of the WordPress attacks originated from within the U.S.

WordPress Threats and Security Issues Solved

Now, this all may seem overwhelming and may even dissuade you from using WordPress – that is not the intent at all. As a platform, WordPress is relatively solid, and as long as you’re keeping a clean WordPress restore file and protecting yourself by taking measures such as never using themes or plug-ins downloaded from untrusted locations and changing your default “ADMIN” name, you should feel as secure as possible in this day and age. Having a solid partner for WordPress optimization can give you the added security you need in an uncertain time. That’s what we are here for. Get in touch or view our pricing page to find out how little it costs to have us fighting for you on your side against the hackers.