Case: Staged Auto-Updates Closed the Patch Gap From 23 Days to 1

Case: Staged Auto-Updates Closed the Patch Gap From 23 Days to 1
Client's mean time to patch a disclosed plugin CVE was 23 days. Two incidents traced to known, unpatched bugs.

Update SOP:

— Step 1: Enable WordPress core minor + security auto-updates on every site.
— Step 2: Enable plugin auto-updates only for plugins with a clean 12-month changelog.
— Step 3: For the 4 fragile plugins, run updates on a staging clone nightly, auto-promote if smoke tests pass.
— Step 4: Alert if any plugin sits >48h behind its latest version.
— Step 5: Review the patch-lag report weekly.

Outcome: Mean time to patch went from 23 days to under 1 day for auto-eligible plugins, 48h for staged ones. Known-CVE incidents in the following 9 months: 0.

Run this every time.