by Marisa VanSkiver

The internet is full of too-smart people waiting to take advantage of any security vulnerability in your site, gaining access to your information, your email, and making your site deliver malware to anyone who visits it. Once your site has become victim to malware and hacking, it can be a gigantic, costly headache to unravel.

WordPress is one of the largest platforms in the world, making it a constant target for hackers. Luckily for everyone who loves WordPress (like us here at PCG), its development team Automattic is constantly staying on top of threats, vulnerabilities, and common issues. They release updates for core WordPress on a regular basis, and plugin authors tend to follow to make sure their plugin stays compatible with the core installation.

When was the last time you updated WordPress?

That’s a really vital question. Has it been a year? Six months? Even a month ago could mean that you’re vulnerable to threats that the nice people at Automattic already protected against. Hackers are on top of their game, so they know exactly what to exploit if you’re running an outdated version of WordPress, even from a month ago.

When was the last time you made sure all your plugins were updated?

This is as important as updating your core WordPress installation, maybe more so. Many plugins are free and their developers create them as a hobby, not a full-time job. This means they can’t necessarily stay as on top of their threats as WordPress can. You should always thoroughly research any plugins you add to your site to minimize risk, but then after that make sure to update them when those updates become available.

WordPress and plugin authors are doing the hard work of keeping your site protected, but you have to allow them to do so by constantly making sure your updates are completed.

We understand of course that worrying about your site being up-to-date is just not the top of your list of priorities. That’s why we offer our awesome monthly maintenance package, to take care of the things that will go a long way to keeping your site safe, secure, and protected.