About This Study: Local Data for Singapore SMBs
Until now, the cybersecurity conversation around WordPress has been dominated by global benchmarks from tools like Wordfence, Sucuri, and WPScan. Aggregate data drawn from millions of sites worldwide can obscure the specific reality facing Singapore SMBs, who often run on different hosting infrastructure, with different plugin stacks, and with very different levels of IT support. This study was built to close that gap with local, Singapore-specific data.
This study was designed to:
- Quantify the prevalence of known WordPress security risks among Singapore-based business websites
- Identify the most common vulnerability types in the Singapore SMB context
- Provide actionable, data-backed recommendations for businesses, policymakers, and the web services industry
- Establish a baseline for year-on-year tracking of WordPress security posture among Singapore businesses
Who this report is for:
- Singapore business owners and website managers who want to understand how their security posture compares to local peers
- Digital agencies and IT service providers advising SMB clients on web and security matters
- Policymakers and ecosystem stakeholders seeking data to inform Singapore’s SMB cybersecurity awareness agenda
All findings are reported as aggregate statistics. No individual site data, business name, or personally identifiable information is disclosed, and all scanning was conducted passively in accordance with Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA).
What’s Included in This Study?
This report, produced in partnership with Cutlazz, runs across 11 pages and is organised into five core findings, a practical action plan, and a full methodology. Here’s what you’ll find inside:
Executive Summary & Key Findings at a Glance
The state of WordPress security among Singapore businesses, distilled into the numbers that matter most, including how 80.4% of scanned sites carried at least one detectable vulnerability and why many of these gaps may constitute PDPA Section 24 compliance failures.
Why Singapore Needs Its Own WordPress Security Data
The case for local data, the study scope, and the passive, non-intrusive scanning approach used (WPSec, metadata only – no authenticated access, brute-force, or exploitation).
Finding 01 – WordPress Core Version Currency
Why 4 in 10 Singapore business sites run an outdated WordPress core, including real examples of sites still running versions from 2014 – 2019 carrying dozens to over 100 documented core CVEs.
Finding 02 – Plugin Vulnerabilities
How plugins became Singapore’s biggest WordPress attack surface: 1,853 confirmed CVEs across 72 sites, notable cases involving WooCommerce, Elementor, and Slider Revolution, and the systemic gap in plugin maintenance.
Finding 03 – Exposure & Configuration Gaps
The “free intelligence” attackers get for nothing – XML-RPC exposure, wp-cron exposure, login paths advertised in robots.txt, and REST API user enumeration, and what each one means in practice.
Finding 04 – Risk Score Distribution
How every site was scored from 0 to 100 across seven indicators, the breakdown across five risk bands, and why 1 in 3 sites lands in the High or Critical range.
Finding 05 – High-Risk Cases & Severity Breakdown
Two anonymised case studies showing how compounding vulnerabilities across core, plugins, and configuration produce acutely exposed sites, plus a severity breakdown of where confirmed CVEs fall.
Seven Actions Every Singapore WordPress Business Should Take
A prioritised, plain-language remediation checklist from enforcing HTTPS and updating core to disabling XML-RPC and running quarterly self-scans, all achievable without a specialist cybersecurity budget.
Methodology, Definitions & About
Full transparency on how the study was conducted, the risk-scoring model, study limitations, key term definitions, and citation guidelines.
How to Use This Study
This report is designed to be acted on, not just read. Here’s how to get the most out of it depending on your role:
If you own or manage a WordPress site, start with the Executive Summary to understand the landscape, then jump straight to the Seven Actions checklist. Each recommendation is tagged by priority (Immediate, High Priority, Standard Practice, Ongoing Hygiene) so you can triage what to fix first. Most fixes take minutes and require no specialist budget.
If you run a digital agency or provide IT services, use the findings and risk-scoring methodology as a framework for auditing client sites and communicating risk in concrete, evidence-backed terms. The case studies in Finding 05 are useful for illustrating how individually minor issues compound into serious exposure.
If you’re a policymaker or ecosystem stakeholder, treat the aggregate statistics and risk-band distribution as a baseline for the Singapore SMB cybersecurity conversation and as a benchmark for tracking change year over year.
To benchmark your own site, run a free, passive scan using the same class of publicly available tools referenced in the report, such as Sucuri SiteCheck, WPScan, or Security Headers, and compare your results against the cohort averages. If an attacker can find these gaps in minutes, so can you.
A note on interpretation: automated scanning captures only publicly visible signals and is a point-in-time snapshot, not a full security audit. The presence of a vulnerability does not confirm active exploitation, but it does confirm an avoidable, documented pathway worth closing.
Preview The Singapore WordPress Website Cybersecurity Study
