I wrote a blog past a few years back comparing WordPress to Windows XP. It's a widely used piece of software, important to millions of people. Windows XP gets hacked as soon as you put it online. So does WordPress, especially out of the box.

But I have to say prioritizing code signing when there are so many other obvious places to improve security doesn't make sense.

The low hanging fruit are there and have been mentioned in this thread to harden default WordPress installs. The chances of the current hacks we already know about happening are MUCH higher than the chances of a person in the middle or person inside WordPress infecting core distributions.

Also how many of you actually sign your emails with PGP on a fairly regular basis? I dare any of you to live with signing PGP and signing attachments with your email client more than a few times a day. Once you see how badly PGP is implemented from a user perspective, you'll realize that just having a signing library for code is not enough-- there's a lot of work to be done to make the experience seamless.

I think that's what Matt cares about (and many others) -- making the update experience as seamless as possible while keeping security top notch.

I also think that it this is a responsability of many more than the core WordPress dev group. Hosting providers, end users and many others also should bear the burden of managing their WordPress installations. I know many developers who don't even think of the default security stance WordPress takes and just 'set it and forget it'.

We probably need a WordPress Pearl Harbor to happen before anyone takes real notice. Until then, harden and secure your sites and choose hosts that take security seriously (ie choose Managed WordPress hosts).