In the last few years, we’ve seen WordPress blogs show up everywhere, and every week there are dozens of new themes and plugins released. Until now, I’d never considered a WordPress virus possible. And technically, WordPress is pretty secure but have you ever wondered about the themes you install?

Sergej Müller has released an AntiVirus plugin for WordPress that scans all the themes you have installed looking for potential security holes in the themes. Most theme writers and designers aren’t purposely leaving or putting security holes in their themes, but mistakes, oversights and inexperience happen, leaving a potential for a security opening.

Even with the vast number of themes available, a single theme can see use on hundreds of sites meaning they would all be vulnerable. A quick search using Google will reveal with sites use any particular theme thanks to the footprints in the code. A person bent on exploiting these holes would have an easy time tracking them down and causing havoc on those sites.

All themes that I provide when installing WordPress are scanned using this plugin before being listed, and again with all upgrades. This is in addition to general code scanning by myself and others to clean up any obvious mistakes and make changes or improvements.