It is important to use the latest WordPress version, and latest Themes and and Plugins. Hackers will work continually to find ways into websites to use them to send spam. WordPress developers work hard to stay ahead of the hackers.

cPanel provides a facility to enable you to always be using the latest versions. If you didn’t enable upgrades when setting up WordPress, just follow the steps below:

cPanel:- Software:- Softaculous Apps Installer: – WordPress:- Overview: – Edit: (pencil icon)
Tick:

Auto Upgrade
Upgrade to any latest version available (Major as well as Minor)
Auto Upgrade WordPress Plugins
Auto Upgrade WordPress Themes

There are also plugins to do the same, but then they need to be updated. This is a surer way.

The consequences of not using the latest versions of WordPress, Plugins and Themes are 1) making it easy to be hacked and 2) causing the website to stop working because the versions are out of date and no longer supported.

We have been asked a few times why a website was not displaying, only to find that it had an old version of WordPress, or an out of date plugin or theme, or was using an out of date version of PHP.