Routine Patch Lag vs. Legacy Stranding
When WordPress releases a new minor update,
staging review windows are standard procedure.
In our dataset, the latest release had landed
just 6 days earlier, and 29.3% of sites (9,407 domains) were running the immediate prior release.
The critical risk is legacy stranding: over 20% of all scanned websites (6,561
sites) are completely abandoned on legacy major branches
(v6.x, v5.x, v4.x, down to v2.0.11) with publicly
documented, weaponized CVEs.
Why sites get stranded: Custom
theme and plugin incompatibilities, hardened server
configs disabling WP-Cron, or orphaned client
projects where maintenance lapsed.
Outdated / Vulnerable Plugins (19,616 sites) 61.2%
Latest Core Version (16,068 sites) 50.2%
Routine 6-Day Patch Lag (9,407 sites) 29.3%
Legacy Vulnerable Core (v6/v5/v4) (6,561 sites) 20.5%