Update: On Monday, December 18, 2017, there was a massive distributed brute force attack targeting WordPress sites. The attack used a large number of attacking IPs where each IP generated a huge number of these attacks. It is the largest, most aggressive breach to date, with over 14.1 million brute force attempts per hour.
WordPress security solutions are mere bandaids, subject to more attacks in the future.
Attacks like these are why your Wordpress is never really secure. With more than 87 million sites worldwide, WordPress is the leading CMS of the internet. But being a leader in your space doesn't come without its pitfalls. WordPress's massive site structure has opened them up to many security threats since the software's 2003 launch.
Another severe hacking event shocked WP users in February 2017, when attackers penetrated 1.5 million sites thanks to a loophole within the WordPress REST API. The REST API was touted as a connector to enhance communication with other web programs, revolutionizing WP's own outdated API. A vulnerability in the REST API allowed hackers to infiltrate nearly 2 million sites — compromising up to 350,000 sites in one campaign alone.
The only way WordPress core developers can patch significant vulnerabilities within their software is to deploy patches in the form of product updates. WP has deployed 238 releases over the past 14 years, and many of them have been to fix security problems.
Still, many site developers disable the automatic update feature because it could impact their site's design and function. About 5% of WordPress sites are not updated with the latest, most secure version.
Securing your WordPress site is costly, too. Simply purchasing a WordPress site isn't enough to protect your data. Users have to buy WordPress security plugins and installs from third-party companies to not only protect their site, but stay updated on new vulnerabilities.
One of the primary reasons WordPress is open to security threats is because it operates as a decentralized CMS. That means each site — all 87M+ of them — has to be updated individually. So every time there is a security threat or a big fix, those updates are not completed on a set timeline. The time it takes for your site to be updated could be catastrophic.
RebelMouse is a centralized CMS, which means all of our updates are quickly deployed at once to every site we power. We often deploy multiple updates every day. Our proprietary technology is protected internally, making it nearly impossible for a hacker to crack.
Site security is one of the many reasons RebelMouse is the best CMS. Join us and reach a larger audience — safely.
