On the defensive

On content management systems, row crops, and the risk of concentrating too many sites within one managerial system

A huge share of websites are managed through the same platform: WordPress is the 800-lb. gorilla. Some claim that it serves as the foundation for more than 40% of sites on the Internet, which is a huge fraction, if true. Thus, even if it isn't technically a monoculture, it is the decisive player in the content-management market.

■ But any time a large number of attractive targets are lined up in one place, that presents a danger. Having the same website backbone as 40% of all other websites makes every individual site using WordPress more attractive as a target for both crime and mischief, because the vulnerabilities discovered for one are replicable for many others, if not all.

■ That is presently the case, as a coordinated attack campaign appears to be underway. Outdated plugins and obsolete versions of WordPress are being exploited by the crooked in order to snare information they shouldn't have.

■ WordPress is nice in that it does permit people to put up websites without having to develop in-depth coding expertise. But that's a vulnerability, too, since a user base heavily populated by those with modest technical skills is also one in which precautions (like a regular schedule for installing platform upgrades or a policy for user data securuty) may be few and far between. It's a little like having lots of banks use the same keypad on their vaults -- especially if many of them don't know how to.

■ Farmers raising row crops know that a healthy soil environment often depends upon rotating among crops. The website owners and managers of the world need to learn that monoculture is equally problematic when so many websites are driven by the same tools on the backend.