Some people claim that WordPress isn’t secure because it is open source (free), which means that hackers can easily access the software to find holes in its security. Which is silly.
Yes, WordPress is free and hackers have easy access to it, but so what? Hackers can easily download pirated copies of software they want. The fact that WordPress is a free, open platform makes it actually more secure.
As Ken Blanchard said “None of us is as smart as all of us.”
There’s Safety in numbers
Most website software is designed by one company with a limited number of employees on the project. Yes, WordPress has one creator as well, but the community that works on the program is huge. Thousands of people are involved in doing things like updating the software, creating plugins and making easy-to-use themes. It’s a giant community effort.
As soon as there is a problem, someone finds it almost immediately. And when they do, the WordPress development team works hard and fast to solve the issue. Each time, they also release a brand new Security Update. Those are the updates that have a third number in the version like 3.2.1. The “.1” means it is a security update.
Compare that to the software of other companies whose updates are much less frequent, and whose community is much smaller, and you’ll see the advantage of a group effort like WordPress.
Arguably, a web site’s biggest security vulnerability is the web host. More on that in the next in this series.
Photo by Mike Krzeszak
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