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Wordpress.org Warns of Active Worm Hacking Blogs
Erik writes "Wordpress, the popular open-source Content Management System (CMS) for many thousands of bloggers worldwide, is under attack from a 'clever' worm that automatically compromises unpatched versions of the Wordpress system. The particularly nasty bug crawls the web for vulnerable Wordpress installations, installing malware, deleting content, and generally wreaking havoc wherever it can. Today, Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg eloquently implored Wordpress bloggers to update more frequently. Originally, updating the Wordpress system was a rather laborious process; however, newer versions offer fast and simple one-click upgrades. The two most recent versions of Wordpress (2.8.3 and 2.8.4) cannot be attacked by the worm discovered this week, and blogs hosted at Wordpress.com are also apparently immune."
There have been widespread worms that did this sort of thing before (phpBB comes to mind). Does this one do anything novel that makes it deserve the adjective "clever?"
-:sigma.SB
WARN
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
Maybe you should stop putting the Wordpress version in meta tags on the page? Or at least make it opt(-in)ional?
If wordpress.org is hacked, again, their one-click upgrade feature means instant ownage for all Wordpress blogs everywhere.
From TFA: "This particular worm, like many before it, is clever: it registers a user, uses a security bug (fixed earlier in the year) to allow evaluated code to be executed through the permalink structure, makes itself an admin, then uses JavaScript to hide itself when you look at users page, attempts to clean up after itself, then goes quiet so you never notice while it inserts hidden spam and malware into your old posts."
So let me get this straight. If I have a blog that doesn't allow other people to register, say for example, one just for my personal note-taking use. Then I'm in the clear? Sweet. Guess I don't need that Snake Oil after all....
"When I am king, you will be first against the wall..."
http://wordpress.org/download/
When you download Wordpress, you're asked for your email address for release notifications. Shame they don't actually use it:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/230558
What's the point of offering it if they don't use it? Also, their blog has such a terrible noise-to-quality ratio that it's absolutely useless in this regard. All I care about is whether a new version is available or not - I couldn't care less about what new "awesome" features they've added or are trying to add - I just want to update my blog when new versions are released and leave it at that.
Now even my own blog says that I need to enlarge my Penis!
Scobilizer has been tweeting about the same problem this afternoon.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
The reason most siteowners are slow or never update is because it's a huge pain in the butt.
This applies to almost all CMS's, forums, and similar software.
While a one-click solution sounds nice, the real problem is that almost any large board has a number of plug-ins and modifications to get it where it needs to be.
Once those mods/plugins are installed, the one-click updates no longer work.
SEO URL's?
Custom themes?
Anti-bot measures?
All of these things can completely render an "easy update" useless.
The people who write this software need to find a way to keep the core code separated from plugins for updates.
I personally use www.SimpleScripts.com for this exact reason. I use a ton of open source software for my websites and it is hard to keep track of all the updates made to them. SimpleScripts emails me every time an update comes out and it provides me a one click upgrade to the latest version for Wordpress, phpBB and Drupal which are the 3 systems I use the most.
Thanks for posting. I finally upgraded from version 2.3 to 2.8.4 for my blogs.
The admin dashboard alerts you whenever a new version is available. You don't even need to register with/check their site.
He who has no
That's a good information. Most of the serious bloggers keep updated their wordpress versions. The users also have option to update their blog by just one click. If you have not done so, please do it right now.
Yes, but that assumes you regularly visit your admin panel.
Whenever you login as an admin to post, or do something else, that is your default landing spot.
If you choose not to do anything, because some precious widget might break, or you have a hair appointment in 20 minutes, and continue doing so through numerous point releases, you get what you paid for eh?
Or as Duncan Chalk said:
"Pain is instructive"
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
I understand that contributors/authors who haven't any access to the administrative features won't be able to see the version (but that also assumes they wouldn't be in a position to upgrade either). But really, what's the point of using WordPress if you're not going to use the admin panel? It shows a wonderful overview of comments, spam, drafts, and so forth. I would assume that the idea of never visiting the dashboard enough to notice new versions might be applicable to those use cases of individuals who make a post once every 2 months.
He who has no
You see the admin panel when you log in.
The admin panel shows you when an update is available.
Therefore, you may be up to a half a month behind on update notifications delivered through the admin panel.
A half a month doesn't sound like a big deal but look at the most recent releases:
They really need an e-mail distribution list for those not already monitoring the development blog via RSS or security blogs, because 10 days is a reasonable amount of time for someone to not log into their blog. It has nothing to do with whether you use the admin panel or not, and everything to do with the critical "fix for a fix" that comes barely two weeks later.
But really, what's the point of using WordPress if you're not going to use the admin panel? It shows a wonderful overview of comments, spam, drafts, and so forth. I would assume that the idea of never visiting the dashboard enough to notice new versions might be applicable to those use cases of individuals who make a post once every 2 months.
But to be honest I think that's a reasonable use case. It's the kind of use I make of Wordpress. I view my site as more of a homepage than a blog - I use Pages much more than Posts and make changes only rarely. As a result it'll often be several weeks between my visits to the admin page.
It's a shame; for people like me the notification mailing list would be perfect but for some reason the Wordpress folks don't make use of it. It's odd that they still encourage people to join it as it can give you a false sense of security.
Does anybody have any technical details about this worm ?
Some people can't upgrade immediately and it would be nice to be able to block the request strings (or user-agent, IP address, whetever) that the worm uses.
I have looked around the various blogs reporting this and on full-disclosure lists but I can't find any better advice than "Upgrade. Now."
Sig matters not. Judge me by my sig, do you?
Matt Mullenweg eloquently implored Wordpress bloggers to update more frequently.
If only Matt stopped breaking backwards compatibility, I would be up to date constantly. In the last few years I've seen several things breaking as matty decided to rename hooks and stuff. Therefore, all important functions of my sites must be checked before actually upgrading...
.sig: No such file or directory