Secure Your Website: Checking for WordPress Plugin Vulnerabilities

Keep your WordPress website secure

In fact, they like to go after smaller websites because there is probably less security making them easier to hack. Always keep your WordPress installation, plugins, and themes up-to-date to protect your site!

Written by WP SiteGenius



August 27, 2024



Blog | WordPress Plugins | WordPress Security

This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. We only recommend products and services that we use professionally. Thanks.

Trying to choose a new plugin for your site and trying to make the best choice?

With WordPress being used as the platform for so many websites, guess what?! Even the smallest website can attract hackers and cyberattacks.

In fact, they like to go after smaller websites because there is probably less security making them easier to hack.

Always keep your WordPress installation, plugins, and themes up-to-date to protect your site!

Sometimes when you’re working on a site and you want to install additional plugins, you’ll see that there haven’t been any updates for a few months. There may be a message that the plugin has not been tested with your current version of WordPress yet.

If You See This…

You can determine a lot about a plugin by when it was last updated and the number of downloads.

This indicates that it’s likely over a few months old and that the developers may or may not still be working on it. To best keep your site safe from coding vulnerabilities in plugins you can do a few things.

First, if you’re wondering if a plugin has any known issues, you can check it at WPScan’s WordPress Plugin Vulnerabilities list. They show them in alphabetical order so you can search for it easily.

Second, check the “View Details” of any plugin on the WordPress Dashboard admin menu.

You can determine a lot about a plugin by when it was last updated and the number of downloads. For instance, the Duplicate Page plugin was recently updated, works with the current version of WordPress, and has over 3+ million downloads and activations.

Users of the plugin also rate it with 5 stars meaning that it works well within their sites consistently.

This is an awesome plugin to install if you need to duplicate content such as pages and even custom posts! The developer obviously keeps up with plugin and its security, so always look for these:

The plugin to have been updated within the previous few months
The plugin to be tested with the most current version of WordPress (that you updated!)
That the plugin has many downloads – look for over 10,000 downloads or so unless it’s a recommended plugin by a major developer or WordPress company
Although this isn’t as much of a consideration, look for generally good reviews – sometimes plugins don’t interface with some themes or sites for reasons other than the plugin itself

As a side note: If you’re using the Divi Theme on your site, it has a built-in way to duplicate pages within the theme itself. I’ll show you how to accomplish this in another future post!

WordPress is always working hard to ensure the safety of their websites and platform. They pull outdated plugins from the repository so they can’t be used on sites.

Happy WordPress and as always, keep your site up-to-date!

Share with your followers!

Browse All Categories

Subscriptions: Transform Your Business with a Membership Website

Feb 3, 2025 | Membership Website, Small Business, WordPress Community, WordPress Plugins

Want to build a loyal community, generate recurring revenue, and share your expertise with the world? A membership site might be the perfect solution. Let’s explore the incredible benefits they offer.

Growing Your Business: Why WordPress Should Power Your Next Website

Dec 12, 2024 | Blog, Small Business, WordPress Themes, WordPress Website

Growing Your Business: Why WordPress Should Power Your Next WebsiteExpand as your business evolvesWhen you want to expand, WordPress is ready for integrating new plugins and functionality to inspire and achieve your business success!Starting with the right website...

The Beginning of a Journey: Launching a Membership Website After Creating for Others

Dec 1, 2024 | Blog, Brand Identity, Online Digital Strategy, Small Business

I have discovered something valuable in creating the WP SiteGenius membership site… that it turned out to be far more effort than I had originally expected. I work on it tenaciously many hours a week, far surpassing a full-time job.