The problem with this argument is simple: to <i>stay</i> secure, you have to keep WordPress core current with updates. And the only way to apply updates is for an administrator to apply them, either through the admin backend or directly through the filesystem.<p>The vast, vast, vast majority of WordPress users are not that diligent about doing this, and their hosts don't do it for them. So they just sit on whatever version they happened to be running when they first set up the site for years. I do a lot of consulting work on WP sites and see this all the time.<p>So while I would be the first to agree that the WP core team has gotten much, much better about writing secure software, until there's a way for that software to stay secure <i>when used as average users use it</i>, it will never be truly secure.<p>There is a market for WP hosts who will take this administrative burden on for you in exchange for costing you more -- WPEngine is a big player in that market. But I'm at the point now where I think the only way forward is for WP to just update itself automatically when updates are released, no user intervention required. It's not acceptable for security to be something you only get from a few high-priced hosts; most people will never use those hosts. It needs to be secure for everybody, including those who run it on commodity shared hosting run by semi-competent admins, as long as "runs great on commodity shared hosting run by semi-competent admins!" is a selling point for the software.<p>EDIT: They illustrate this problem right in the post!<p><i>"WordPress users must be responsible for their own security, maintain strong Passwords, and keep plugins and themes up to date, as well as WordPress itself."</i><p>How many decades of experience with non-technical users will it take to get us to understand that <i>they just don't do that stuff?</i> They don't maintain strong passwords. They don't run updaters. All that stuff that the post puts on their shoulders, is stuff we know for a fact that many (most?) of them will <i>never even think of doing.</i><p>If you know that's the audience for your software, and you don't design it to be secure when used as you know that audience will use it, the responsibility for the eventual hacks are as much yours as theirs.