"Recently we've seen more websites get hacked because of various security holes," Patrick Chapman of Google's Search Quality Team said. "In order to help webmasters with this issue, we plan to run a test that will alert some webmasters if their content management system (CMS) or publishing platform looks like it might have a security hole or be hackable."
According to Google, the initial testing phase of the new warning process will involve alerts to "five to six thousand webmasters."
"One of the most popular pieces of software on the web is WordPress, so we're starting our test with a specific version (2.1.1) that is known to be vulnerable to exploits," Chapman said. "If the test goes well, we may expand these messages to include other types of software on the web."
"In general, it's a good idea to make sure that your web server's software is up-to-date. For example, the current version of WordPress is 2.6.2; not only is that version more secure than previous versions, but it will also alert you when a new version of WordPress is available for downloading," Google Software Engineer Matt Cutts added. "If you run an older version of WordPress, I highly encourage you to upgrade to the latest version."
Website owners should check their Google Webmaster Tools account for any potential vulnerability warnings, which will be archived; so even those currently without an account will receive the warnings if they do eventually register for this free service.