Why There Are So Many WordPress Security Warnings Lately

Cigar time. Haven’t done one of those since the beginning… so let’s talk about the WordPress security scene.

If you run a WordPress site, you’ve probably noticed a lot of security updates lately. A lot of vulnerabilities reported, a lot of warnings. And it’s brought out the people who love to say you just need to get away from WordPress.

The thing is, WordPress isn’t the problem. One of the best things about it is the plugin ecosystem. These days I look at WordPress less as a way to build a website and more as a harness. You can bolt all kinds of pre-built things onto it and make a site that does real work. Sure, you could build it with AI. But building with AI doesn’t guarantee it’s secure, and in a lot of cases you’re just reinventing the wheel. For a basic brochure site, build it with AI, who cares. For a site that does real work, WordPress is still a great harness.

That does come with security responsibility, though. Rank Math Pro had a pretty bad one recently. There’s been a big issue with UpdraftPlus too. In my Concierge business I track all of this. I’ve got a full dashboard just for monitoring plugin security across the fleet of sites I manage, and the volume lately is high. I used to run plugin updates for clients once a week, which was already more than most people do. That’s no longer enough. I’m running fleet updates twice a week now, and if something critical or high severity comes out, it’s drop everything and update it right then.

So why is this happening? It’s AI. And I don’t see it as a bad thing. People are vibe coding plugins without knowing enough about what they’re doing, which opens up issues. People are also using AI to scan plugins and they’re finding problems that were always there, or were so arcane they never came up. And yes, the black hats have AI tools too. AI has stepped on the accelerator. Ultimately I think that makes the ecosystem more secure, not less. It just feels worse because of all the warnings.

WordPress core is pretty buttoned up, by the way. Quick security fixes ship as incremental releases that auto-update. Plugins are where the vulnerabilities come in, and the more plugins you run, the more chances for problems.

So it’s nothing to panic about. But if you run a WordPress site, be responsible for it. Take the time, keep it updated, stay on top of it. And frankly, if that’s not worth your time, that’s exactly what Concierge is for. I’ve got the systems and the monitoring in place, and I’ll handle it for you. Learn more at https://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/concierge