Many scripts that send e-mail include a file called PHPMailer. The file is distributed as part of WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and lots more software.
Recently, a security researcher discovered a security bug in PHPMailer. The bug could allow “hackers” to take over a website.
However, sites hosted on our servers are not vulnerable to this problem. (Despite that, you should always update your copy of WordPress, Joomla, or any other software when there’s a new version available.)
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The authors of the Joomla software announced that Joomla versions 1.6.0 through 3.6.4 have a critical security bug that allows “hackers” to take over a site (CVE-2016-9838).
The best solution for Joomla users is to update to version 3.6.5 immediately. However, we also added a security rule to our servers this evening to block this attack, based on an initial analysis.
The rule works by blocking attempts to register new Joomla users that contain certain kinds of invalid data; it allows only “expected” data. This could mean that if you’ve modified your Joomla user registration page in some unusual way, it might be incorrectly blocked. We’ll keep an eye out for this potential problem; don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
The authors of the Joomla software announced that Joomla versions 3.4.4 through 3.6.3 have a critical security bug that allows “hackers” to take over a site by adding new administrative users (CVE-2016-8869).
The best solution for Joomla users is to update to version 3.6.4 immediately. However, we also added a rule to our servers this morning to block this attack. The rule should ensure that if you use our hosting service, hackers won’t be able to take advantage of this bug.
(And a tip o’ the hat to security researcher Melvin Lammerts, who published detailed technical information of the bug that allowed us to do this more quickly than usual.)
The authors of the Joomla software announced today that every version of Joomla below 3.4.6 has a critical security bug that allows “hackers” to take over a site.
The bug was in use by hackers for two days before the Joomla authors patched it, and we found several Joomla customer sites that had been modified as a result. We’ve restored backups of those sites and notified those customers directly, but we recommend that all Joomla users change their password to be safe, even if we didn’t notify you of a problem.
The best solution for Joomla users is to update to version 3.4.6 immediately. However, we also added a rule to our servers this morning to block any more attacks until our customers can update. The rule should ensure that if you use our hosting service, and your site hasn’t already been modified, hackers won’t be able to take advantage of this bug.
The authors of the Joomla software announced today that every version of Joomla between 3.2.0 and 3.4.4 has a critical security bug that allows hackers to take over a site (the bug is known as “CVE-2015-7857”).
The best solution for Joomla users is to update to version 3.4.5 immediately. However, we’ve also added a rule to our servers to protect our customers until they do this. The rule should ensure that if you use our hosting service, “hackers” won’t be able to take advantage of this bug.
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There’s been a lot of discussion recently about a critical Joomla security bug that allows “hackers” to upload malicious PHP script files to Joomla sites, then run them. This would allow hackers to use your site to send spam, or to replace any file on your Web site.
Although our customers running Joomla should always upgrade to the latest versions when available, we’ve also put rules in place to protect against this vulnerability.
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After upgrading our systems to PHP 5.2.6, we received reports of an incompatibility with Joomla. Some URLs do not work when Joomla is configured to use “Search Engine Friendly URLs”, but to not have “Use Apache mod_rewrite” turned on.
We’ve investigated this, and it’s caused by Joomla assuming that PHP has a bug that makes it work incorrectly, when in fact it’s supposed to work differently (and is clearly documented to work differently). Older versions of PHP had this bug, but the new version doesn’t.
To help our customers work around this, we’ve “patched” PHP to intentionally reintroduce the old bug for now, thus keeping it “compatible” with Joomla. If you were having trouble with Joomla’s “Search Engine Friendly URLs”, it should be fixed.
We’ll provide more technical details (and a more robust long-term solution) in the near future.
Update: We’ve also reported this problem to the Joomla developers and suggested a solution.
