Category Archives: Advisories

Advisories

USN-7015-4: Python vulnerability

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USN-7015-1 fixed several vulnerabilities in Python. This update provides the
corresponding update for CVE-2023-27043 for python2.7 and python3.5 in
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Original advisory details:

It was discovered that the Python email module incorrectly parsed email
addresses that contain special characters. A remote attacker could
possibly use this issue to bypass certain protection mechanisms.
(CVE-2023-27043)

It was discovered that Python allowed excessive backtracking while parsing
certain tarfile headers. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue
to cause Python to consume resources, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2024-6232)

It was discovered that the Python email module incorrectly quoted newlines
for email headers. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to
perform header injection. (CVE-2024-6923)

It was discovered that the Python http.cookies module incorrectly handled
parsing cookies that contained backslashes for quoted characters. A remote
attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Python to consume
resources, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2024-7592)

It was discovered that the Python zipfile module incorrectly handled
certain malformed zip files. A remote attacker could possibly use this
issue to cause Python to stop responding, resulting in a denial of
service. (CVE-2024-8088)

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Advisories

Secure Custom Fields

Read Time:1 Minute, 49 Second

On behalf of the WordPress security team, I am announcing that we are invoking point 18 of the plugin directory guidelines and are forking Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) into a new plugin, Secure Custom Fields. SCF has been updated to remove commercial upsells and fix a security problem.

On October 3rd, the ACF team announced ACF plugin updates will come directly from their website. This was also communicated via a support notice in the WordPress.org support forum on Oct 5th.  Sites that followed the ACF team’s instructions on “How to update ACF” will continue to get updates directly from WP Engine.  On October 1st, 2024, WP Engine also deployed its own solution for updates and installations for plugins and themes across their customers’ sites in place of WordPress.org’s update service.

Sites that continue to use WordPress.org’s update service and have not chosen to switch to ACF updates from WP Engine can click to update to switch to Secure Custom Fields. Where sites have chosen to have plugin auto-updates from WordPress.org enabled, this update process will auto-switch them from Advanced Custom Fields to Secure Custom Fields.

This update is as minimal as possible to fix the security issue. Going forward, Secure Custom Fields is now a non-commercial plugin, and if any developers want to get involved in maintaining and improving it, please get in touch.

Similar has happened before, but not at this scale. This is a rare and unusual situation brought on by WP Engine’s legal attacks, we do not anticipate this happening for other plugins.

WP Engine has posted instructions for how to use their version of Advanced Custom Fields that uses their own update server, so you have that option, though the WordPress Security Team does not recommend it until they fix the security issues. You can uninstall Advanced Custom Fields and activate Secure Custom Fields from the plugin directory and be just fine.

There is separate, but not directly related news that Jason Bahl has left WP Engine to work for Automattic and will be making WPGraphQL a canonical community plugin. We expect others will defect as well.

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