Monthly Archives: April 2014

Wordpress

WordPress 3.8.2 Security Release

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WordPress 3.8.2 is now available. This is an important security release for all previous versions and we strongly encourage you to update your sites immediately.

This releases fixes a weakness that could let an attacker force their way into your site by forging authentication cookies. This was discovered and fixed by Jon Cave of the WordPress security team.

It also contains a fix to prevent a user with the Contributor role from improperly publishing posts. Reported by edik.

This release also fixes nine bugs and contains three other security hardening changes:

  • Pass along additional information when processing pingbacks to help hosts identify potentially abusive requests.
  • Fix a low-impact SQL injection by trusted users. Reported by Tom Adams of dxw.
  • Prevent possible cross-domain scripting through Plupload, the third-party library WordPress uses for uploading files. Reported by Szymon Gruszecki.

We appreciated responsible disclosure of these security issues directly to our security team. For more information on all of the changes, see the release notes or consult the list of changes.

Download WordPress 3.8.2 or venture over to Dashboard → Updates and simply click “Update Now.”

Sites that support automatic background updates will be updated to WordPress 3.8.2 within 12 hours. If you are still on WordPress 3.7.1, you will be updated to 3.7.2, which contains the same security fixes as 3.8.2. We don’t support older versions, so please update to 3.8.2 for the latest and greatest.

Already testing WordPress 3.9? The first release candidate is now available (zip) and it contains these security fixes. Look for a full announcement later today; we expect to release 3.9 next week.

US-CERT

TA14-098A: OpenSSL 'Heartbleed' vulnerability (CVE-2014-0160)

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Original release date: April 08, 2014

Systems Affected

  • OpenSSL 1.0.1 through 1.0.1f
  • OpenSSL 1.0.2-beta

Overview

A vulnerability in OpenSSL could allow a remote attacker to expose sensitive data, possibly including user authentication credentials and secret keys, through incorrect memory handling in the TLS heartbeat extension.

Description

OpenSSL versions 1.0.1 through 1.0.1f contain a flaw in its implementation of the TLS/DTLS heartbeat functionality. This flaw allows an attacker to retrieve private memory of an application that uses the vulnerable OpenSSL library in chunks of 64k at a time. Note that an attacker can repeatedly leverage the vulnerability to retrieve as many 64k chunks of memory as are necessary to retrieve the intended secrets. The sensitive information that may be retrieved using this vulnerability include:

  • Primary key material (secret keys)
  • Secondary key material (user names and passwords used by vulnerable services)
  • Protected content (sensitive data used by vulnerable services)
  • Collateral (memory addresses and content that can be leveraged to bypass exploit mitigations)

Exploit code is publicly available for this vulnerability.  Additional details may be found in CERT/CC Vulnerability Note VU#720951.

Impact

This flaw allows a remote attacker to retrieve private memory of an application that uses the vulnerable OpenSSL library in chunks of 64k at a time.

Solution

OpenSSL 1.0.1g has been released to address this vulnerability.  Any keys generated with a vulnerable version of OpenSSL should be considered compromised and regenerated and deployed after the patch has been applied.

US-CERT recommends system administrators consider implementing Perfect Forward Secrecy to mitigate the damage that may be caused by future private key disclosures.

References

Revision History

  • Initial Publication

This product is provided subject to this Notification and this Privacy & Use policy.

Microsft

MS14-017 – Critical: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word and Office Web Apps Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2949660) – Version: 1.0

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Severity Rating: Critical
Revision Note: V1.0 (April 8, 2014): Bulletin published.
Summary: This security update resolves one publicly disclosed vulnerability and two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office. The most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a specially crafted file is opened or previewed in an affected version of Microsoft Office software. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the current user. Customers whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than those who operate with administrative user rights.

Microsft

MS14-020 – Important: Vulnerability in Microsoft Publisher Could Allow Remote Code Execution – Important (2950145) – Version: 1.0

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Severity Rating: Important
Revision Note: V1.0 (April 8, 2014): Bulletin published.
Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Office. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted file in an affected version of Microsoft Publisher. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. Customers whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than those who operate with administrative user rights.