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Your site is running an insecure version of PHP, which should be updated.

You've logged into your WordPress admin section, and suddenly you've got a PHP Update Recommended warning shouting at you. Your site is running an insecure version of PHP — eek!

The good news: With most hosts, fixing the error is straightforward. With Fused.com's hosting: It's especially easy. We'll cover fixing it on Fused.com hosting. Information for correcting it on other hosting providers is available on Github.

What makes my WordPress PHP outdated?

Let's briefly cover what the error is: Your PHP version is outdated. Older versions of PHP may open up opportunities for vulnerabilities that newer versions have corrected & fixed. Equally as important: Newer versions have performance improvements that will often make your site run significantly faster, and help the planet by conserving energy that it takes to serve your site.

A good analogy we like to use, is that the PHP version your site is like a car. WordPress is the driver of the car, and tells PHP what to do. Extremely early versions of PHP are like driving around a 1971 Pinto. It'll get you there, and, more than often suffice. If you want more safety, security & huge performance improvements you'll run PHP 8.2+.

Note that at the time of this writing (October 27th, 2023), PHP 8.2 is the recommended version.

Correcting the Your site is running an insecure version of PHP warning takes all of two minutes.

For Fused.com WordPress sites

  1. Login to cPanel
  2. Navigate to MultiPHP Manager
  3. Select the relevant domain on the list using the checkboxes on the left side of cPanel (multiple selections can be made)
  4. In the PHP Version dropdown on the right-hand side, set the version you require. If you're on a version prior to 7.4, start with that. Optimally, try to get the site to 8.2
  5. Select apply. Give your site a quick test, particularly contact forms & anything mission critical.

If issues arise, simply revert the changes back to the prior version.

All set! That domain will now use the desired PHP version. If you run into any issues that reverting versions doesn't help, contact Fused