Emergency PHP & WordPress Support
Practical technical support for businesses that need help assessing, patching and hardening PHP and WordPress websites.
The Problem
A PHP security release lands, and suddenly you need to know which PHP version is actually answering requests on your server — not the one your shell reports. Meanwhile your site sits on a runtime that has reached end of support, running a plugin you have not updated in a year, on a host where you cannot tell whether the platform has been patched for you.
Most of the panic in that situation comes from not knowing. This service exists to answer the three questions that matter first: what are you actually running, what needs to change, and is the change safe to make.
What This Service Is
Prioritised, scoped technical support for PHP and WordPress websites — covering version and end-of-support assessment, security patching, vulnerability assessment with prioritised remediation, and post-change verification. It is bought when something needs doing now, rather than as part of a monthly retainer.
Emergency work is prioritised and subject to availability. It is scheduled around your critical path, and we do not commit to a guaranteed response or resolution time — we will tell you when we can start and what it will take.
Who It's For
Site owners facing a PHP security advisory who need the exposure established and the runtime patched, not a lecture on CVEs. Businesses on an end-of-support PHP branch who need a compatibility assessment before upgrading. WordPress sites that have been left unmaintained and need core, plugin and theme updates with something tested behind them. Anyone whose site has become unstable, slow or unavailable and needs a second set of eyes on configuration, dependencies and logs.
What You Get
- PHP version and end-of-support assessments
- WordPress core, plugin and theme security updates
- Vulnerability assessment with prioritised remediation
- PHP dependency and compatibility checks
- Docker and container configuration reviews, including exposed services
- Database access-control and configuration reviews
- Backup verification and recovery planning
- Post-update testing of critical site flows
- Investigation of compromised, unstable or unavailable websites
Scope Boundaries
Three different things get confused in a security emergency. They are not the same, and they are scoped differently.
Security Assessment
- Establishes what is running and what is exposed
- Produces a prioritised list of findings
- Does not change anything on your site
Remediation
- Applies the changes you authorise
- Runtime patching, core/plugin/theme updates, configuration corrections
- Verified afterwards against your real traffic paths
Ongoing Monitoring
- Continuous monitoring and alerting — see Observability
- Recurring maintenance — see Support Retainer
- Managed patching and uptime monitoring — see Light Hosting
This is a stabilisation and remediation service, not a continuous monitoring product. If the underlying problem is that nobody owns your hosting or your patch cycle, we will say so and point you at the retainer or managed hosting that actually fixes it.
What's Not Included
- Guaranteed response or resolution times
- A 24/7 staffed on-call rotation — emergency work is scheduled, prioritised and subject to availability
- 24/7 incident response or digital forensics retainers
- Continuous monitoring as a standing service (see Observability)
- Feature development, architectural changes or framework migrations
- Recovery of data that was never backed up
- A guarantee that a compromised site is clean without rebuilding it from known-good code and a known-good database
We will not tell you a site is secure, and we cannot promise every plugin and theme will work on a new PHP version. We can tell you exactly what you are running, what needs to change, and whether the change broke anything — which is the part that matters when your website is your business.
Pricing
Assessment & Remediation
- No commitment required
- Billed per hour or per agreed task
- Prioritised scheduling, subject to availability
Scoped Emergency Engagement
- Fixed scope and price agreed before work starts
- Suited to a defined patching or hardening project
- Written scope, findings and remediation plan
Ongoing Support Retainer
- Reserved monthly support hours
- Defined response targets
- Overage at the hourly rate
The applicable proposal, statement of work or quotation is the authoritative source for pricing and scope. Request an assessment and a quote for your specific situation.
How It Works
Initial Assessment
We establish what is actually running: which PHP runtime answers web requests, which WordPress core, plugin and theme versions are installed, and where the exposure sits. No changes are made during this stage.
Agreed Scope & Quote
You receive a written scope of findings, a prioritised remediation plan, and a price for the work. Nothing proceeds beyond assessment without your authorisation.
Authorised Changes
Only the changes you approve are made — runtime patching, core, plugin and theme updates, configuration corrections and hardening. Changes are staged or tested where the setup allows it.
Verification
We confirm the patched runtime is genuinely the one serving requests, that workers have restarted, and that your critical flows still work — login, forms, checkout and admin areas.
Reporting
You get a written record of what was found, what changed, what remains outstanding, and what we would do next. Facts and remaining risk — not a claim that the site is secure.